Heart of Stone
by corvusdraconis
Summary: SSHG, AU, Sirius Black hates Severus Snape. When an ugly confrontation occurs between them at Grimmauld Place, Sirius throws an old Black family curse at him, only to have Hermione Granger attempt to stop him. She's hit head-on, and everything changes— starting with her. (NC/Crack)
1. Chapter 1

**Summary:** SSHG, AU, Sirius Black _hates _Severus Snape. When an ugly confrontation occurs between them at Grimmauld Place, Sirius throws an old Black family curse at him, only to have Hermione Granger attempt to stop him. She's hit head-on, and everything changes— starting with _her_. As her fellow students shun her more than ever, certain things thought long dead come to light, casting an ever-greater shadow over the champions of light.

**Beta Love:** The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

**Warning:** Not canon, SSHG, HEA, probably crack

* * *

**Heart of Stone**

_From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate._

**Socrates**

* * *

When Albus heard the terrified shriek coming from the library in Grimmauld Place, he felt his heart fall into his stomach as an icy dread spread throughout his body.

He'd missed something.

He'd underestimated something.

He looked around at the wide eyes of those sitting at the table: Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, almost every other Weasley, and the tattered remains of the Order of the Phoenix—

Sirius Black was conspicuously absent.

Severus Snape was also absent—

Hermione Granger—

Oh Merlin, no. Not _her_. Not the one who had miraculously managed to keep Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley alive—

He ran down the hall into the isolated, oft-ignored library to find Sirius Black standing with his wand in hand, frozen in horrified paralysis, his flushed face twisted in dawning realisation.

Hermione Granger hung limply from what looked like a stalagmite, that had risen up from the floor and impaled her, the tip having pinned her body against the recoiling Snape. She was frozen, having pushed her professor away so only the edge of his woolen robes had been caught by the shard of stone, but the weapon of earth had taken her to the chest, breaking through her ribcage, and embedded itself into Hermione Granger's still-beating heart.

He cast a few frantic spells to stop the onslaught that had claimed her, but a blast of powerful, all-encompassing hatred blew him back into a wall, knocking him temporarily senseless.

Her screams of agony would haunt him even more than Ariana's, for his sister's death had been, at the very least, quick. She cried out in agony, her body spasming as the "rock" of the stalagmite seemed to liquefy and go molten, pouring over her young body in a slow, excruciating crawl. It poured over all of her exposed flesh and clothes, her clothing swiftly gave up the ghost as it was seemingly burned away. It burrowed into every single pore of skin. It slithered into her nose and mouth, burning as it went with earthen fury and unerring magical guidance. Her veins and arteries glowed with magical fire as the magical molten stone flowed into her bloodstream, and she shrieked the entire time until her vocal cords finally gave up, frozen in place by cooling magma as her entire body was encased in a twisted parody of an egg.

The surface of the igneous tomb, crackled as it cooled, the surface steaming and hissing as a noxious miasma arose from the entrapped stony prison.

When Dumbledore reached for the surface, a hostile, obsidian spike burst out from the egg-like formation, attempting to impale his hand.

His normally twinkling blue eyes lost all of their sparkles as his lips pressed into a hard, unforgiving line. He narrowed his eyes, glaring at Sirius Black. "What have you done?"

As a chorus of gasps came from the gathered Order members, taking in the sight of the grotesque monstrosity that had devoured Hermione Granger alive as well as the dangling, immobile form of Severus Snape hanging from the far wall, Albus saw reality close in on Sirius Black like a vice.

Alastor Moody scowled as his wand lit up and he cast spells over the pulsating, seemingly growing, igneous formation in the middle of the library, the glowing form of Hermione Granger was encased within, swirling magic and rock infesting her body as her silent, psychic screams made the faces gathered all pale in abject horror.

Moody's jaw tightened as his scanning spells came back, telling him what he did not want to see or admit: Severus Snape hadn't cast a single spell, but Sirius Black had crafted a vicious curse so filled with hatred and foul blackness of a kind that even the Darkest magical families had tried their best to forget.

"Sirius Black, you are under arrest for the use of a Dark curse on a minor. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questions something which you later rely on in Wizengamot. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

"_**NO! **_Not Sirius! Not _**SIRIUS!**_" Harry cried. "Don't _**do **_this, Mad-Eye! This is all some terrible mistake! It _**has **_to be! It's bloody Snape's fault! He _**provoked **_him!"

Alastor grabbed Harry by the front of the shirt, jerking him upward. "Don't be a blind idiot, boy. Snape's wand is clean, he didn't cast a single offensive spell, plus he's the one currently pinned to a bloody wall— Black just cast a Dark curse on a child. A _**CHILD**_, boy! Do you think that is remotely excusable? Do you think that just because you want something to be the way you want them to be that it somehow makes things go away? Well, it _**doesn't! **_I've wanted Snape to be guilty for almost two whole decades, boy, and I just got the reality check of my life right here— in this house of allies. Black was supposed to be a member of the light. He was an Auror just like your father, and now— I'm starting to wonder if your dad wasn't every bit as bad as Snape once told me he was, but I didn't want to believe him at the time."

Moody jerked on his magic via his wand, and Sirius was immediately in heavy magical irons, his mouth, hands, arms, and legs securely bound.

"_**NO!**_ Don't send him back to _**Azkaban!**_ It was only a mistake! Hermione just got in his way! She's impulsive! She's _**always **_defending bloody Snape! It's _**HER **_fault she got in his way! Don't _**do **_this to Sirius!"

Dumbledore put a gentle restraining hand on Harry's shoulder. "Harry, I saw it myself. _**All **_of it. As much as I wished to believe that Sirius wasn't truly capable of such a terrible thing, Sirius used his hatred for Severus to power his curse. That— the formation that took Miss Granger— was powered by powerful hatred and the very darkest of Dark magic."

"No, it's not! It's _**NOT!"**_ Harry yelled as he desperately threw himself at the formation.

The surface bubbled and oozed with undeniable hatred, seething, burbling, hissing menacingly as if it was alive.

"_**NO, HARRY!"**_ Remus cried, diving at him, throwing him to the floor as an igneous spike flew outward, just barely missing impaling the younger wizard.

Remus rolled over, wincing in pain. Harry pushed him off, looking like he was going to take another go at it when he abruptly paled and focused on the deadly spike that had torn open his jumper and trousers— and would have impaled him had Remus not stopped him in time.

Harry clutched at his forehead, screaming in agony as Dark magic swirled around him like a hungry shark as if seeking to attack him again. His scar suddenly burst open and began to bleed profusely. He cast himself down onto Moody's dragonhide boots, practically toppling the old Auror by knocking him off-balance. "Please don't take Sirius away! _**Please! **_My parents trusted him! He's my godfather! He's _**family!**_"

"Harry," Remus said quietly, trying to pull him up.

Harry fought him with all he had, his anger bubbling up uncontrolled—

The burbling residue of hate from the curse Sirius had cast fed off it, sending tendrils shooting into Harry's scar and wound and drained him of all his hate and anger and the magic that backed it up.

Dumbledore slammed down a powerful barrier shield, cutting it off before it drained Harry of all of his magic. The Order frantically put up shields to attempt to protect themselves as well. The tendrils of magic searched for the next best source of hate, licking across the shields until it found the bound Sirius—

The tendrils reared back and then shot into Sirius and fed— off his anger, his hate, his emotion, his memories like a starving Dementor.

They fed overwhelmingly fast— far too fast to protect against, too powerful to be driven back after having absorbed the magic of the House of Black, whose very existence was founded on the utmost of hatreds cultured over hundreds and hundreds of years.

Hermione's psychic scream peaked as Sirius Black fell to the ground, face first. The tendrils withdrew, the stone trap pulsed, and then it went utterly silent. The screaming stopped, and an unnatural silence settled over Grimmauld Place.

* * *

_**Notorious Azkaban Escapee Sirius Black Found at St Mungo's Entirely Drained of Magic!**_

_Sirius Black, convicted murderer of former friends James and Lily Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and twelve innocent Muggles, was found comatose at St Mungo's after suffering what appears to be severe magical backlash from casting some sort of ancient, forbidden Dark magic._

_Investigations have found trace evidence of the"Igneus Hominum" a horrific curse rumoured to have roots in the Black family and was allegedly used for ridding the family of ancient rivals. The spells, long-buried in antiquity, were banned, but that wasn't why they were put out of use._

"_The Olde Magick spells," Ministry Antiquarian Sage Bihan Farquest stated, "were often rooted within the magic of the family that created them. Using them required a great base pool of familial magic or very strong emotion to power the spell— but preferably both. Without extensive precautions that often outweighed the benefit, use of the spell could drain a family to nothing magically. The end did not justify the means, as they say."_

_The fate of Sirius Black is now within the hands of the Wizengamot as an investigation as to the intended target of the spell is currently underway. _

_So far, however, Mr Black shoes no sign of regaining consciousness or returning magic. It is believed his condition will likely prove permanent._

"_It's as if his magic simply chose to go somewhere else," a baffled healer was overheard saying as he exited a hospital staff meeting. "How do you even try to treat that?" _

* * *

Harry woke the next morning in an infirmary bed at Hogwarts with a throbbing headache. The sunlight coming through the window across from him was far too bright for his eyes, and he winced in pain.

"Ah, you're awake," Dumbledore said from the comfy armchair he had conjured nearby. He stroked his beard absently. "How are you feeling?"

Harry frowned. "Tired, sir."

"Quite understandable," Albus said, his blue eyes taking on a solemn greyness that did not carry even a hint of his trademark twinkle. "You almost died, Harry. Or rather, your magic did. In this world, that is often considered a fate worse than death."

Harry blinked back his shock. "_**What?!**_"

"The spell that Sirius cast fed off, was powered by emotion— in particular, the strongest of emotions— and in that situation, my dear Harry, the strongest emotion was yours. When that emotion was devoured, it took the next best thing— the lure of your magic." Albus touched one finger to Harry's forehead where the wound was healing again. "And that lingering magic that was so strong that it stayed with you since you were born. Even—"

Albus frowned. "The magic that your mum used to protect you. It has put you in a very dangerous place, my young friend. Far more so than you've ever been."

Dumbledore sighed. "When you were but a wee babe, I enhanced the spell your mum used to protect you, binding your family's bloodline to your protection— a protection that would last until your seventeenth birthday, provided you continued to live with blood family in order to reinforce the magic your mum cast. It simply could be no other way, I'm afraid."

"But when you were captured via the trophy Portkey, that protection became moot," Albus said heavily. "The danger to you had already increased tenfold, but at least here— at Hogwarts— you were much safer. I tried to encourage you to find roots here. To _want _to be here, but I fear I have done you a grave disservice in not being clear from the start with regard to Professor Snape's loyalties."

"He's a _**monster!"**_ Harry blurted.

"No, Harry, he is not. That is only your godfather speaking. The truth is much more complex. In fact, your father and his best mates, Sirius included, made it their mission in life to torment Professor Snape throughout his time here as a student. I turned a blind eye because I thought it was about mere boyhood pranks— but I was a fool. I was prejudiced against Slytherin and inclined to ignore even the most egregious failings of my old House. I fear that I did it again in allowing you and your young friends to repeatedly escape punishment in my attempt to keep you safely here at Hogwarts. However, I do not plan to make that mistake again. Especially—"

Albus closed his eyes for a moment as if in pain. "Miss Granger is currently in critical condition. The magic that she was attacked with has both cursed and protected—"

"She should _**never **_have—"

"Mr Potter," Dumbledore said, his tone turning steely. "She attempted to save a life yesterday. There are exceedingly few who are so brave and resolute that they choose to stand up for what they believe in with action and not mere words. Professor Snape is a trusted teacher and a dear friend of mine, Harry. I would have you remember that. And you should know better than anyone that appearances and rumour breeds far more lies than truth."

Albus narrowed his eyes. "And you do not ask me how she is or if she is alright, no. Which begs the question, Harry— what are you more concerned about right now?"

Harry stared at his lap, the wrinkles around his eyes crinkling. "Sirius was my only chance to have a real family. Peter escaped. She _**knew **_how important he was to me!"

Albus cracked his neck. "Harry, if Sirius had attacked Severus entirely without Miss Granger's interference, he would still be guilty of casting a Dark, forbidden magic, and he would be facing the prospect of Azkaban yet again, if but for very different reasons. And perhaps, you should think hard upon this, Harry. If Sirius _truly _valued your future together, why then did he choose to let his grudge against Professor Snape overrule his feelings for you?"

Harry paled, torn between truth and fantasy— the need for his ideals to become his reality.

"As it is, the only one who can safely be in the same room as Miss Granger is Professor Snape. He is the only one here capable of controlling his emotions well enough to avoid triggering the defences on the curse," Albus said grimly. "I am unsure when the curse will be released or even if it can be. Auror Moody is doing his best to research the specific Olde magicks at work, but that is not exactly his speciality."

"Why can't you? You're the headmaster!"

Dumbledore frowned harder. "Harry, something you are going to have to learn is that none of us are perfect. None of us are the masters of all things, including me. Perhaps, especially me. In fact, I find that I see that now more clearly than ever before. Professor Snape is a master at controlling his emotions. You may not think it to be so, but he truly is the best suited for the task of keeping Hermione Granger safe."

"Not _**Snape**_!"

Dumbledore stood.

"I want to see her!" Harry exclaimed, standing up.

Dumbledore shook his head. "No, Harry. That is not a good idea."

"Why?"

"The last time you were exposed to Miss Granger's magical barrier-curse, you were almost drained of all magic. Do you _really _want to risk that again?"

Harry's jaw clenched stubbornly. "She's my friend. I should be ab—"

"Mr Potter," Dumbledore interrupted. "You've hardly been acting like a friend, and I think you need to get some sleep and do some serious thinking once you are fully rested, don't you?"

Harry lay back in the bed, scowling at the ceiling but mercifully silent.

Albus walked out of the infirmary, shaking his head, the look of concern not quite leaving the crease of his brows.

* * *

Snape braced himself against the "sound" of the continuous psychic screams that came from inside the stone prison. With each agonised screech, the ground seemed to shift and crack, the books shaking down from the shelves.

He reached out and gently touched the stone formation. "I fear I cannot take the pain away, but I can help you dull the edge. Teach you how to ground it and drive it away. If you'll let me in, Miss Granger."

The stone under his hand seemed to warm and pulse. The screams seemed somewhat lessened as her misery appeared to slowly fade into the background by his attention.

Snape extended his awareness, closing his eyes and trying very hard to allow Hermione to see his teaching from his mind without exposing her to the smouldering cauldron of emotion underneath— his anger at Black for having hit a student with a curse and that curse having been meant for him. He had never liked Black in any way, but when the hostility was aimed at him, he could deal with it. But bloody Black had caught a _child _in a torturous Dark family curse— the sort of thing that had been long buried for a reason.

His hatred for Black and his one-time compatriots had been a smouldering fire under his skin from the moment they had first met on the train to Hogwarts, and the fact that James Potter was long dead hadn't dulled the feeling one iota. Every time he looked at Potter's look-alike son, he was bitterly reminded of all the pain and humiliation he had endured at the malicious hands of Potter senior and his merry band of wankers.

No, the hatred he felt for them was very much alive and well, and Potter's misbegotten son was every bit as foolish, pig-headed, and brash as his utter swine of a father had been. Dumbledore had always coddled the boy as if putting him with Petunia and that horrible Vernon was somehow going to make everything okay. Everything was quite obviously far from okay.

The boy was a menace, sending emotional shrapnel around in a rising magical cyclone that the aware could feel even if he wasn't flinging chairs and tables around.

But what had happened to the Granger girl—

It was downright criminal, as much a blatant, glaring attempt on her life, accident or no.

No, Snape knew Black had fully intended for it to torture him forever, only it had struck Miss Granger instead.

And he had a feeling Hermione not only knew that fact but had also heard every last selfish, insensitive comment Potter had made in trying to prevent his mangy cur of a godfather from going to Azkaban for what he'd done, even blaming _her _for the mutt's predicament.

Some bloody friend.

All of this he carefully buried deep behind an impenetrable wall of Occlumency. It wasn't as if Granger needed to know his opinion of what she already knew. She hardly needed a reminder of what her supposed best mate had really thought of her when the gobstones were down.

Tendrils of magic— earth-based, Granger's own, and some other mix —wrapped around the hand he had placed upon the stone surface. It crawled over his hand, wrist, and then continued up his arm like a sleeve. He felt the brush of Granger's mind as she gobbled up what he was offering her, but the touch of this strange combination of magic caused his usually impeccable mental controls to scramble.

He realised then why that "something" seemed oddly familiar.

The magic felt like Black's and how Regulus' had once felt. It was the Black familial magic mixed with—

Oh, _Merlin_.

The Dark Lord's insidious magic crept over him, and he recoiled, immediately trying to shut it down. He couldn't allow the Dark Lord to realise he was helping a mere "Mudblood" even if allegedly under Dumbledore's orders.

And therein lay his _second _mistake—

The moment he pulled away, the tendrils snapped around his arm like an iron vice, determined to see its mission through. The magic tightened around his arm like a tourniquet, cutting off his circulation, and he was positive in that moment that he'd lose his arm completely like a wild animal caught in a trap that was forced to gnaw its own paw off to escape.

The magic burrowed into his arm with an agonising savage heat, the feel of molten stone seemingly crawling through his veins as if to share the curse utterly and completely. He could feel the draw of magic, and he saw his Mark crawling, twisting, writhing as the tendrils seemed to add to it as much as it was taking away. He cried out, his legs scrambling against the floor of the Grimmauld Place library. His neck strained as the arteries and veins bulged, his face twisted with just a short taste of the agonising torture Granger was going through second by second, minute to hour, hour to day—

Even as it burned and seethed and scalded, tearing into him with the sensation of molten lava in his veins, he sensed Granger's sorrow as she realised the memories were connected with the magic she had inadvertently stolen.

_This does not belong here,_ a voice so like hers spoke in his blood, his mind, and perhaps his very soul. _I can help you as you helped me._

He realised as Granger's magic seemed to assimilate the other magics and make it her own that the feel of the Dark Lord's magic was a phantom, a trigger, and perhaps it was a queued line waiting to be transformed by Hermione in her stone cocoon.

Would he be drained, too?

He heard and felt the pulse of a great heart beating within the stone, thumping like the footfalls of a giant upon the earth.

"Help me," he groaned, the terrible pain even worse than the _Cruciatus._

_I found the reason why it hurt so very much, _her mind-voice said, now seeming calm and ethereal. _It hurts because I fought it, but I'm not fighting anymore._

Snape, hardly the one who could ever "let go" and let anything happen as it would, struggled with the concept of surrendering to anything.

Especially when the pain was far more significant than any Cruciatus—

Yet—

Granger was never the kind of person who would lie. She had been many things as his student, but she had never been a liar. The one notable time had been when she'd said she attempted to fight the troll herself to get Potter and Weasley out of the hot seat.

Minerva hadn't believed it either, but the troll had been dealt with, so—

No thanks to Quirrell.

Snape let out his breath, trying to think of something that didn't cause his mind to see it as a threat and realised that everything he had was a threat in one way or another.

The Dark Lord.

Lily.

Potter's gang of nimrods.

Potter's son trying to kill himself with his own stupidity and brash carelessness.

Dumbledore's "fatherly" hovering, ready to yank on his chains of guilt and duty—

Not that Albus had actually saved Lily—

Not that he'd actually tried—

And for the first time in his life, Severus Snape let go of his anger and frustration and allowed those emotions to flood out of him. They came in a trickle, then a flood, and then seeped away like the draining of a long-harboured abscess.

The relief was almost painfully poignant.

He barely felt the tears flowing down his face as he collapsed on top of the stone cocoon, even as the earthen magic continued to entrap his arm. Even as he wept, having not truly allowed for such things since Lily's death (and even then it had involved much throwing of furniture and destroying of breakables he felt a profound relief as it left him. He felt this even stranger sensation of both compassion and sympathy— true understanding of a pain shared.

How could one so young already understand such loss and guilt? Such anger, such betrayal?

And then, he realised Hermione Granger had more than heard all the arguments and nattering that had gone on all around her stone prison— most of all Harry Potter's heartfelt pleas to save sodding Sirius Black over her.

She had heard the blame he had cast upon her as the reality of their friendship had been nought but convenience to Potter's need for "real" family.

He saw her in tears during the Yule Ball, crying in the girl's lavatory in her pain of being ridiculed and unaccepted. He saw her ostracised for her teeth, her hair, her too-smart know-it-all-ness.

He felt his own pangs of guilt for having contributed to some of that, yet it seemed she felt his remorse, for the magic didn't torture him for his transgressions. It felt quite alien as the sensation of both understanding and Granger's compassion touched him like the wrap of a warm hug.

That too was utterly alien to him. His mum's hugs had always been brief or desperate. His father— well, that had _never _happened after his magic had shown. It wasn't like any of his peers ever wanted to touch him in a genuinely caring way either. Even Dumbledore's shoulder hugs had always been layered with some false sense of grandfatherly duplicity.

_No one should suffer alone, Professor,_ her voice came with an undeniable tone of respect.

Only a few minutes ago, he would have exploded in rage, roaring that she had no idea what she was talking about— that she could never know him or presume to know him, but he couldn't deny her genuine care. It was laced within her magic, hidden in her grief, and waiting for some outlet she had been denied for some indefinite amount of time.

He could almost feel the touch of her slender fingers on the skin of his arm— the warmth, the respect.

Before he could even realise it, all his emotions had fled with his tears, and he slumped over the stone that held Hermione Granger in a dead sleep.

* * *

Harry had just wanted to get to Hermione to convince her that it was all a terrible mistake. Surely she would understand. Sirius hadn't _meant _to attack her, and Snape had just goaded him into an attack like he always tormented his students. She'd _have _to understand that, especially after the horrid git insulted her teeth, right? He was obviously a horrible person. Sirius was his _godfather!_ His parents had trusted him! Harry _needed _him!

She had so many people.

She had parents!

He didn't even have those!

She _owed _it to him to make things right!

"This is a really bad idea, Harry," Ron protested from underneath the cloak as they tumbled out of the floo together. "Dumbledore said—"

"Dumbledore doesn't understand!

Ron made a face. "He's Dumbledore. He understands things!"

Harry hissed his mate quiet.

As they shuffled under the invisibility cloak, they made their way past the Auror posted by the library door. The man glowered as he heard their feet shuffle on the old wooden floor, and he quickly cast a _Hominem Revelio_. Harry quickly clamped his hand over Ron's squealing mouth, and they did a sideways shuffle around the Auror. The Auror went storming down the hall, wand out, and they plastered themselves against the wall and slid by into the library, making sure to quietly close the door behind them.

They stumbled in to find the room filled with a strange sort of miasma. They covered their faces with their sleeves, coughing on some of the acrid vapour caught in their throat.

"_**Snape!"**_ Harry cried, seeing the black drape of the man's stupid, hated billowing robes. His jaw tightened in fury.

Anger was an old, cherished friend— the friend that had never once let him down. He lurched forward, wand out, not even caring that he didn't have a plan. He was seeing red, and the anger demanded appeasement at once.

"H-Harry!" Ron protested thinly in fright, seeing the vapour around the room begin to form into a dense cluster of thick, writhing tentacles. His hand tried to jerk on Harry's robes to pull him back, get his attention— _something!_

Without so much as a backward glance, Harry roughly shook Ron off his arm, as his magic rose up around him like a cyclone bursting through a stand of trees. Before he even realised it, a spell was already out of his mouth, his wand flaring with a spike of furious energy, and it went zooming directly at Snape—

_Sssshhhhhhhhrrrrrrkkk__**POP!**_

The Hogwarts gargoyle appeared in a puff of dark vapour, its muzzle curled in a wicked snarl of dagger-like teeth. The magic from Harry bounced off the gargoyle's skin, causing cracks in the stone, but the stone healed instantly as the skin turned molten, filling in the cracks to become whole again.

With the absorption of magic, the gargoyle grew larger, and it growled lowly, the library shaking so much that the books went toppling. It placed its forepaws on the stone encasement and Snape, a river of sticky drool hanging in rivelets from its openly annoyed maw of extremely sharp teeth.

The gargoyle's hackles raised, eyes glowed menacingly, and then—

_Shhhhhhrrrrkk__**FOOP!**_

The gargoyle, the stone encasement, and Snape were suddenly all gone, leaving the library empty save for—

"_**Halt! On order of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement!"**_

Stunners hit Harry and Ronald square in the back as the cloak went fluttering to the floor, blending into the floorboards and disappearing from sight.

* * *

"I'm very disappointed in you, Mr Potter," Dumbledore said coolly as he paced his office. "You were not given permission to leave Hogwarts grounds. You left well past curfew, hijacking a school Floo after hours. You were specifically instructed to _leave Miss Granger alone _after the incident with Sirius Black. On top of that, you attacked a teacher and purposely sneaked by an on-duty Auror. These are all expellable offences that cannot be ignored. The only reason you are not being expelled is that there is a terrible war going on, and it is, despite it all, far safer in here than beyond these walls."

Dumbledore's pacing stopped at he placed his hand on the spinning globe in his office.

"I am placing Minerva in charge of your punishment and letting her administrate it as she sees fit. On top of this, you and Mr Weasley are both forbidden to leave Gryffindor tower outside of your classes or detentions as they may fall. You will be escorted whenever you are to leave the tower by Auror. They will be with you at all times. No exceptions. Even when you shower. You will not be permitted to visit Miss Granger at any time, and your respective owls will be strictly monitored in and out. All house elves will be forbidden from helping you, and those that may attempt to will be unable to with very punishing results. Your owls, Hedwig and Pegleg, are banned from flying outside of Hogwarts, whether delivering mail or otherwise. This also applies to you Mr Weasley and your owl, Pugsley. Should you attempt to circumvent this, they will be restricted to a cage. Am I clear, Mr Potter? Mr Weasley?"

"Pig, sir," Ronald squeaked.

Dumbledore's scathing expression seemed to speak volumes as to the actual name of Ronald Weasley's owl.

Ron tried hard not to piss himself, which may or may not have succeeded as well as he'd hoped.

"Now, you two are to report to Professor McGonagall's office at once. Auror Camus Connelly will be your new best friend this evening, _gentlemen_."

The two chastened young wizards slunk away and down the stairwell past the empty spot the large gargoyle should have been, not even noticing its absence.

Fawkes warbled then passed gas that smelled strongly of fermented grapes.

Albus sighed gustily. "I quite agree."

* * *

Minerva McGonagall, Scottish witch, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wickedry— sighed very. very loudly.

Wizardry, she supposed, but it certainly had its… _special _moments.

She was comfortably warm, and contemplating calling off work after the night she had endured trying to devise an appropriate punishment for two exceedingly trying young wizards who were so close to graduating and yet seemed to have learned nothing in the six years they had been resident within Hogwarts.

_Yawwwwwwwwwwnnnnn__**squeak.**_

Minerva blinked.

_Rrrrrwooorrr__**squeak**_**.**

_**Thump.**_

Okay— that was _not _a normal sound for her bedroom, even when the bed in question was feeling particularly ornery.

_Rrrwororllll__**squeak**__-__**squeak**__._

Minerva sat up. _Okay, what the—_

Two sleepy gargoyle pups stared up at her from between half-lidded eyes and large yawns, their miniature paws working against the duvet cover, tails entwined together as their plump little bodies perfectly spooned together in an adorable puppy pile (had they been less stone-scaly). Tendrils of Dark vapour seemed to waft off them, seemingly sentient in their own way as they defied the normal act of mist, fire, or even smoke.

One was the colour of obsidian— the shimmering, almost transparent black of volcanic glass that caught every colour on its surface. It had strangely familiar, lank black hair around its head like a frill. One was a honeyed sienna brown with a riotous mane of curls tumbling around its neck. Their skin was like granite encrusted with diamond dust wherever the light hit it, the colours of what she thought had been black or even brown seemingly fleeting or changing as she stared at it.

_Yawwnnnn__**squeak.**_

The brown one snuggled into the darker one, and the darker one yawned, displaying a disturbing amount of diamond-like fangs, row after row— as if a great white shark had decided to mate with a velociprator and have a mutant child.

Minerva stared.

And stared some more.

Hogwarts hadn't had new gargoyles in _centuries_—

They hadn't exactly taught gargoyle biology in hundreds of years due to how unbelievably rare they were, either.

The fact that Hogwarts had one gargoyle that loyally served was a great, nay, miraculous feat in and of itself.

_Sccrrrrrrrrtthhthththth__**PUUUOP!**_

The one gargoyle she knew, seemingly larger than she ever remembered it before, popped through the stone wall like it was nothing, making a chuffing call.

The two pups perked immediately and scrambled to attend, hopping down from the bed, tumbling off the duvet, and bouncing over to the much larger gargoyle.

The gargoyle stood over them as they licked and pawed at its lower jaw, and the huge beast made a strange _hhhhck hhhhck_ sound as it deposited what looked like a pile of assorted gems and stones on the floor. The pups descended upon them with gusto, crunching and chewing noisily. The adult gargoyle licked them over, sending them tumbling in all directions as its tongue worked them over, and then tendrils of magic held them in place for the secondary workover. The pups protested a little at being restrained, but then rejoiced in their newfound freedom after bath number two.

The smaller pups flapped their little wings, imitating the larger one, and the adult flopped down right in the middle of Minerva's tartan-trimmed bedroom rug, allowing the pups to playfully tussle and paw at its stone scales and feathers, gnaw and pounce on its tail, and then clamber over its mane.

"Erm?" Minerva finally managed, having never had a gargoyle barge into her room for any occasion. There was only one gargoyle she _thought_ was sentient, and the others like the staffroom gargoyles, the comedic female gargoyle that always had jokes to tell those fortunate or unfortunate enough to be in the third floor stairwell—

Well, she realised there were actually more gargoyles that she'd really given credit for, but only one that moved around the castle like an actual creature. Then again— she'd never known the Headmaster's gargoyle to ever leave its post.

A bright green gem had rolled under one of Minerva's chairs, and the sienna pup set after it. Her pudgy little body got stuck between the wooden leg ornaments, and while she did get her emerald prize, she was now stuck.

_**Hrrrrowlllfff!**_ she protested, her back end wriggling along with the front, her leonine tail lashing back and forth as her wings protested the predicament.

The black pup seemed to sigh, stood up, and clamped his jaws around her floofy mane and growl-tugged, his obsidian claws sticking into the ground and scraping as he struggled to release her.

Minerva blinked. Her? Him? How was she to _know_, truly? Yet—

The adult gargoyle watched the pair rather lazily, seemingly unconcerned by their antics.

_Ssshhhhrrrrr__**POP!**_

The sienna pup suddenly popped out of the trap, tumbling arse over teakettle, and flopped wearily on top of the black one.

_Hrr__**squeak**_, the brown one seemed to apologise.

_Hrrrrmph_, the black one replied, tail flopping from one side to the other in seeming annoyance.

The sienna pup crunched the emerald in half and shared it with the black one, and they both crunched into their pieces with a satisfying munching session.

_Whuff_, the adult said, standing up, turning to leave.

Minerva watched the adult walk straight into a wall and disappear as if it were an illusion, and the pups scurried after. They thumped into the wall, dazed and shaking their heads.

The adult's head came in through the wall and engulfed them, pulling them through the stonework like it was nothing at all.

Minerva just stared until her floo abruptly came to life.

"Minerva!"

"Yes, Albus?" she answered, rubbing her head.

"We seem to have a problem."

"What now?" Did she say that out loud? Minerva wasn't really sure.

"I'm afraid that Severus and Miss Granger have gone missing."

"_**WHAT?!" **_Minerva shrieked.

* * *

Severus opened his eyes and yawned, slightly annoyed by the cute-sounding squeak that punctuated it. His tail lashed back and forth with his annoyance, but then a warm body snuggled up next to him and made all his discontented thoughts derail completely.

Warmth and safety seemed utterly guaranteed as he snuggled into that radiant, soothing comfort.

He knew there had been something that was bothering him from before, but such thoughts seemed to swim away like fish from the unknown. There were other priorities on his mind: warmth, food, home, protect—

Protect what?

Home.

Where _was _home?

"Here, obviously," she answered him, her leonine tail swishing as she nuzzled his muzzle. "Ædeweard says so."

Seemed logical enough.

The elder gargoyle seemed quite learned in the ways of life enough to be utterly unflappable, and his tail was so utterly impossible not to want to pounce. "Home" seemed rather comfy— cozy in some places, too noisy in others. Ædeweard seemed to think the area before the stairs was a perfectly respectable place to guard, and there were a number of other gargoyles about the castle that loved the other staircases—

Most of them didn't want to move about, though.

_Booooooring._

Ædeweard was still teaching them how to walk through the walls. It was all about realising they really weren't there to begin with, he said. But of course they were _there_. Where else would they be?

Hermione seemed to catch on faster, and she's ploughed right through a "wall" the other day while chasing a tasty gem.

She was always playing with her food.

At least she shared the spoils when the play was done. Emeralds had the most satisfying crunch. Rubies did too, but they were really spicy. Diamonds were a little lacking in flavour, but when eaten with other stones and gems, they made for a more satisfying mouthful. Granite and marble made excellent chews. Marble seemed creamy and melted in your mouth, making you drool a bit more, though. Alabaster was really smooth, but it made you really thirsty after eating.

_**SNAP!**_

Ædeweard's mouth enveloped a wayward Niffler that was trying to steal their dinner. The Niffler had a panicked look about it as the elder gargoyle shook him back and forth and upside down, dumpling out the gems and—

That was a _lot _of stuff!

The empty-pounced Niffler seemed to sulk as Ædeweard used his tail to swat the creature down the hallway, driving it away from them.

Ædeweard shook his mane and separated the edibles from the other shiny objects, using his magical tendrils to shove the gems into the stonework where they could be taken later and snacked on but hidden from rampaging dinner-stealing Nifflers.

Severus eyed the shiny platters, necklaces, and rings with curiosity.

Ædeweard shoved them to the side for the humans to trip over.

The Niffler "sneakily" returned to shove the items back into its pouch just an instant before Ædeweard's tail came smashing down upon its head. It squeaked in terror as his paw "missed" the creature by a mere sliver.

Severus chuckled to himself. It wouldn't _ever _be trying to steal from them again.

_**SNAP!**_

Hermione growled victoriously as her mouth caged a different Niffler, this one being white with black spots. The creature squealed in terror, knowing its end was nigh.

Hermione shook her head back and forth, driven by instinct to paralyse her prey, yet a part of her seemed to be chock full of mischief. She got the Niffler covered in stone drool and then let it "slip" out of her mouth to splat against the floor. The quick-drying stone cement caught the unlucky Niffler in place where its paws hit the ground.

Severus swat the ground next to the Niffler, and it passed out in fear.

Hermione seemed to frown, nosing the playmate with disappointment.

Severus nosed her, offering comfort. She perked at his touch and play-pounced him, sinking her teeth into his scruff and growling. They tumbled together until he pinned her with his greater mass, and she squeaked in surrender as his teeth delicately pinched the skin of her throat.

She wiggled under him, tail swishing, and he let her up, giving her a tolerant lick on the muzzle.

He could barely admit it to himself, but he felt very protective of her, and she trusted him never to overdo it when they played. Something about that trust made him feel all warm inside again, and he couldn't remember _why_.

"I like your wings," Hermione decided out loud, grooming his left wing with thorough doses of stone-slobber. The slobber hardened, cracked and fell off, leaving his wing pristine and supple.

He eyed her with an arched brow. "Something wrong with yours, hrm?"

"Nope," Hermione said, seeming to shrug. "But yours are really attractive."

Severus sat down on his rump and thought about that, unsure of how to react to that.

Part of him puffed up at her praise, and another part of him seemed to think there was something he was forgetting.

One of the humans was walking by again. Older. Short— well, for a human.

"Go, assist in the patrol," Ædeweard said with a yawn. "Bite anything that dares threaten the peace."

Severus perked. Biting sounded like an excellent idea.

Hermione seemed to be excited to do something too.

"Remember how to come back?" the elder gargoyle asked.

_**FOOOOOOP!**_

_**Thump.**_

Hermione appeared on top of Ædeweard's head.

The elder gargoyle gave her a good lick and thump with his paw. "Off you go."

Severus sighed. Hermione was _such _a know-it-all.

"I'll teach you, if you teach me how to fly without wings," Hermione whispered as she pounce-chewed on his ear on the way by.

Severus perked. "Deal!"

* * *

Flitwick knew something significant had changed at Hogwarts, but he couldn't quite put a finger on it.

Lollygaggers and broom closet snoggers would tumble out from behind curtains rubbing their backsides like something had bitten them. Pranksters would cry out as their own pranks backfired on themselves. Lost first years would suddenly find themselves _un_-lost. Troublemakers would suddenly find themselves stuck to the floor by their legs— their entire leg from the knee down seemingly covered in stone.

Yet, he never saw what had caused such changes in fortune for wayward students.

Even more strangely—

The hub-bub caused by the Auror escort of Saint bloody Potter and his red-headed tumour seemed to have spread and simmered down to less protest and more acceptance that maybe, just maybe people could go too far. Even the Chosen One couldn't get away with everything.

That, perhaps, was the most critical lesson to instil in the students of Hogwarts: fairness.

Even the headmaster seemed resigned to the fact that his old House was slowly getting the air let out of its puffed-up ego, and the war was looming ever darker on the horizon.

Slytherin was darkening every term— the shadows of the parents threatening to drag the children down to their own depths. Flitwick was not a fool, thinking that all Slytherin were inherently evil, no, but he knew that the majority of Slytherin was pureblood or half-blood, and the families had roots deep in a society where blood was everything— power was everything. The war threatened both, and desperation often drove people to do terrible things.

Yet—

The vicious attacks against Muggles and Muggle-born supporters had started to taper off. The Ministry was conflicted, trying to both protect and deny—

Flitwick was not a politician, nor did he ever wish to be. He'd done his own fair share of fighting for his place in the world being born half-goblin. The goblins believed him to be an outsider as he had been raised to be a wizard rather than a proper goblin. He didn't want to see more people punished for societal norms.

"Um, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, Professor, could you possibly help me get my shoes back?"

Luna stared up at the ceiling where about fifty pairs of shows hung by their strings.

"I don't really need them, but I do miss having them around when Gemma forgets to pick up her gobstones."

Filius stared up at the ceiling and boggled— but it wasn't the shoes that caused his brain to derail.

Miss Chang and Miss Edgecombe were hanging upside down by their cemented feet, their mouths covered in plaster, and many, many pairs of shoes hung there like icicles, stuck by the laces into the dried cement. Their wands were stuck in the mouth of shoes just out of reach, and both girls were frozen in a pointing, giggling, state of blatant mockery.

Filius cracked his neck and rubbed the area behind his ear. "Of course, Miss Lovegood, but if you could please tell me how long this has been going on?"

"Oh, ever since my first year, I suppose," Luna said rather vaguely. "It must be all the wrackspurts. They seem to affect people in different ways."

Flitwick blanched. He charmed a piece of parchment into an origami dove and sent it flying off towards the Headmaster's office. "Well, I think it's time we all had a long talk. You, me, and these two… remarkably objectionable young… ah, ladies."

His expression darkened as he wove the spells to bring the female bullies floating back to Earth once more.

* * *

Severus raced after Hermione as she scrambled up the side of Hogwarts, her claws digging into the stone-like earth as she propelled herself forward. He realised as she raced ahead that he had to use certain other advantages to get ahead.

I remembered things— or _knew _things, he wasn't quite sure which— and suddenly his body was aloft and he was flying very, very fast. He shot forward and pounced her from above, sending Hermione tumbling helplessly onto the ramparts with a series of indignant, unhappy squeaks of pure annoyance.

Severus flopped down on top of her, utterly victorious, his tail swishing back and forth in unmistakable triumph.

He nosed her.

She ignored him.

He tugged on her ear.

She turned her head away, determined to keep ignoring him.

He tried to nuzzle her.

She smacked her wing against his face and pushed him away.

Severus slumped, abruptly realising that he'd cheated to win their ground race and made her upset with him. He whined softly and clawed at the flagstone, a hum of earthen magic transforming the flagstone into a rain of raw mineral clusters.

Unfortunately, it also destroyed the stone they were laying on, and the pair of them went tumbling down into the room below in an impressive avalanche of random minerals.

The two pups groaned and squeak-growled together, unsure what to make of their predicament as they found themselves in a hidden room with many, many stone gargoyles caught in various poses— frozen in mid-roars, snarls, and menacing expressions. Around them were piles and piles of gemstones, raw, polished, cut, and otherwise, everything mixing with the shower of precious gems that had been recently made by one apologetic gargoyle pup.

"Eee_ru_?" Hermione made a questioning squeak, nosing the leg of a nearby gargoyle.

Severus sat completely entranced by the glowing gem in the middle of the room. It shimmered with unmistakably powerful magic, beams reaching out in all directions as if from sunlight only it was clear there were no windows and no light came from the outside until their rather impromptu tumble.

Hermione seemed to ponder the glowing gem from the opposite side, the both of them feeling a strange stirring in their stomach. Driven by some overpowering instinctual hunger, the two leapt upon the gem and started to devour it, their relatively tiny teeth working hard to pulverise the magical mineral and channel it down into their demanding stomachs.

The moment the gem had been devoured between them, they each belched out a glowing cloud of magical vapour. Their fight forgotten, they curled up together, snuggling as closely as possible with the other as a deep, irresistible drowsiness claimed them— their bellies full and their curiosity assuaged.

They didn't even notice as hairline cracks formed in each of the surrounding gargoyles' stone surfaces— their frozen guardians burst through a layer of protective stone shards and began to move once more.

The room full of newly awakened gargoyles landed on all fours, snarling, growling, and ready to take on some menace they had only just identified. Yet, no such threat seemed to exist. They sat down on their rumps and looked around, understandably confused.

A female snuffled the two pups that had curled up to sleep, her beautiful topaz-encrusted wings shimmering as the outside light filtered down through the damaged ceiling. Another joined her, a pair of amethyst horns twisting around her head like a crown. A garnet and ruby studded female barged between them and immediately flopped down next to the pups and nosed them both under her wing, giving the pair a thorough tongue bath before protectively enclosing them in her wing.

A curious set of eyes peered down into the broken room from above, Ædeweard looking rather stunned by the new development.

* * *

"How long have we been frozen?" the scarlet female asked, protectively wrapping the two pups against her body.

"It seems like an age's age, Edolie," Ædeweard replied grimly. "Many headmasters have come and gone since you vanished. Many at Hogwarts believed there were but only a few gargoyles left, and only a lesser few able to converse and roam about the castle."

The crimson gargoyle shook her mane, tending to the sleepy pups against her side. "How did you find yourself pups, Ædeweard? If it has been as long as you say, any from then would have long been grown—"

The elder gargoyle whuffed, scratching the back of his neck with a hind leg. "The curse creation spell— as of olde."

The other gargoyles gasped together.

"But it takes the power of an entire _family _to power that curse—" a blue granite male sputtered in disbelief.

"Aye, Oswin," Ædeweard said grimly. The wee female took the brunt of it— but in saving the male from the magic drain, he shared in the curse that she would not be alone."

"Fleta— you knew a cursed one, yes?"

The pink and grey speckled gargoyle stretched and flapped her wings. "Aye. It was the ancient one, Keyon. One of the originals. He and Bede founded many lines before moving to settle in France. They say it was a great Cathedral. Thousands of gargoyles. That was a long time ago, my friend. Long before our great sleep."

"Rare for a human cursed to survive the curse— to willingly accept the transformation to survive. While many wish to live, few wish to lose what they consider most important: their humanity." The elder female yawned toothily, her crystalline teeth shining brightly.

"I've watched these two for years, Gytha," Ædeweard said with a sniff. "They both possess a strong will to survive— even stronger personalities. But— at the core of them— they were both terribly lonely souls. They were already isolated amongst their own."

"They seem like perfectly content pups to me," a malachite-coloured male said, sticking his nose under Edolie's wing to sniff them and give them a few good licks.

The pups squirmed and cuddled against each other tighter, each yawning and melding to the other for warmth and comfort.

"More than you realise, Bede," Edolie said. "Their bond is only growing stronger. By the time they are grown, mating will be a mere formality."

"Truly? I mean—" Bede cocked his head. "I realised we don't have a full rookery to choose from, but surely—"

Ædeweard snorted. "Look at them, Bede. Do you think _we _cuddled with anyone but our own intendeds like that? During which our very magicks blended together in perfect harmony?"

Bede made an odd face. "I suppose not."

Gytha experimentally grabbed Hermione up by the scruff and picked her up.

Hermione wriggled and whimpered, squeaking unhappily in protest.

Severus immediately poked his head out from under Edolie's wing and growled lowly. His stone-like fur stood on end, bristling like an angry hedgehog, and he slammed himself directly into the elder gargoyle's face.

Gytha dropped Hermione in surprise, and Hermione landed with a startled squeak-yelp.

Severus soft-mouthed her wing and pulled her into the corner, placing his body in front of hers in an unmistakably protective gesture, his magic bristling around him like a nest of writhing tentacles.

Gytha blinked. "I, um, bow to your superior vision, Ædeweard."

Edolie thumped over to the pups and took them both by the scruff, seeming to fold her jaws around them exponentially, and tucked them back under her wing. She ignored Severus' indignant squeak-growl of protective protest as she snuggled them against her side and wrapped her wing tightly over them both. "Males. Don't be riling up his protective ire so soon. They still have growing to do."

"You just arrived and are already bossing us about," Ædeweard complained halfheartedly.

"I've been here all along, dearie," Edolie sniffed delicately. "I just haven't moved around all that much."

Ædeweard rolled his eyes. "Technicality."

Edolie gave the pups a loving series of grooming licks. "It's good to have pups again. Our clan has missed them greatly. Even before the sleep—"

An aquamarine gargoyle with a leonine mane lay beside her, nuzzling her gently. "Perhaps, we shall all try again, Edolie. If we can have pups now— then perhaps it is a sign that many more are to come."

The crimson gargoyle's expression softened as she nuzzled the other back. "Thanks, Tyne. I hope so."

Ædeweard frowned. "But, how is it you were sleeping for so long to begin with?"

The other gargoyles shook their heads together.

"The last I remember was a human boy giving us the most beautiful stone for our collection."

Ædeweard scowled harder. "Riddle."

"What happened to the stone?" Tyne asked.

Ædeweard gave him a sideways glance. "I'm pretty sure the pups ate it."

"All hail the gargoyle pups' bottomless stomachs," Bede said dryly.

* * *

**Internal Memo**

**To:** Healers, all, St Mungos

**From:** Master Healer Kendric McLeod

_There has been an unprecedented loss of magic occurring in over fifty magical families. All of them have ties to Y-K-W. via a Dark Mark tattoo worn upon their left arm or else significant magical blood ties to a person who does have it. _

_There will be mandatory overtime and sleeping quarters made available at the hospital until we can stabilise the affected patients and make sure they are not losing their grip on what little magic they may have left. No one works over fourteen hours in a stretch even with breaks. We don't need mistakes being made in this. All meals will be provided for you along with snacks, energy potions, and as much good British tea as you can drink. _

_I appreciate all of your hard work in this time of crisis, and I know many of you are deeply concerned about your own families as well. The good news is, it does not appear to be contagious outside the families that have already been affected. The bad news is, the magical drain seems to be triggered from somewhere well "outside" of where our best diagnostic scans can trace._

_What I __**can **__tell you is that it seems to have something to do with our Patient X, Mr Sirius Orion Black. He was our very first fully drained victim, and I suspect that somehow whatever spell he cast didn't have enough magic to pull from his immediate family and so it went searching further for other familial bonds. Muggleborns, ironically enough, are immune. I fear it is because they have no blood relation distant or present to the old blood._

_The only reassurance I can give you is that once the spell acquired the full amount of magic that was required to power the spell, it appears to have tapered off for the most part. At least as far as we can determine at this point. I suspect that a trigger clause remains possible, but I have yet to confirm my theory._

_Until we confirm it, everyone must do their best to stabilise who we have and also contain the paranoia that this is some kind of plague. _

* * *

Hermione poked her head out from under Edolie's wing and yawn-squeaked. Severus' head followed after, a sleepy look making his brows knit together and his ears swivel in different directions.

Hermione pegged his muzzle with a tender lick and bounced out from the safety of Edolie's warmth, ready for new adventures.

Severus' sleepy frown transformed into alertness, and he followed her, driven to protect her from all comers.

Hermione always seems to lead on, nose first, her curiosity paving the way, and he found himself following behind, ready to defend her from any and all danger. The drive to protect was strong, but the drive to protect Hermione was even stronger.

He wasn't sure why, but he didn't really question it. The adults all protected their home, but that seemed like a bit too much to chew— like trying to devour an entire mountain when your stomach was only the size of a pebble. He was perfectly happy focusing his attention on protecting Hermione. It gave him a sense of purpose and settled something in his stomach he couldn't quite place.

That and—

Well, it seemed like they needed each other.

He, for example, could transform solid stone into raw gems.

But consuming raw gems was a lot like eating that bland stuff the long-ears kept in the castle kitchens. Alone, it was pretty boring.

Hermione, however, could turn the gems into a great pile of tasty, faceted food, filled with deliciously concentrated energy and magic.

It seemed like a perfectly sound relationship of teamwork to _him_.

Hermione came to a sudden halt, ears swivelling. He clumsily slammed into her rump, and she squeaked indignantly at him. Severus chewed her ear apologetically, and she glowered a bit but then seemed to sigh and accept his apology. She squeaked softly and pointed her nose in another direction.

He looked.

Most of the time, they didn't need words to make their thoughts known, but he wondered what was going on in Hermione's head at that given moment.

_Oh_.

Hermione cocked her head and did her best bobblehead impression, her head moving back and forth as if she was watching a match at Wimbledon. Severus saw a student pacing back and forth, and back and forth, and—

Severus sat down hard and covered his eyes for a moment. He was getting pretty dizzy.

"We have to find her, Ron."

"Harry, mate, it's really not a good idea to mess about with those kinds of curses. Ancient family magic curses!"

"That's never stopped us before! This is _**Sirius **_we're talking about! We _**have **_to get him back!"

"It's _**never **_been a thing before!" Ron protested hotly. "There are nasty curses like Bill deals with every day— and _**then **_there are curses like what Sirius used! Family-magic-bound curses! It's linked to the blood, to the family of the user. Do you even _**realise **_that most of the pureblood families are interrelated?! Harry, it could backlash back to anyone with connections to the Black family. _**MY **_family, Harry. You could steal the magic from all of us, Harry!"

Hermione was frowning, the wrinkles around her muzzle deepening.

There was something about this particular human, the one with an untidy mop of black hair that was troubling her deeply, that much he could tell.

There was something about him—

It made him want to pee all over his shoes.

What a strange compulsion!

"We have to help Sirius, Ron."

"He's been completely drained of magic, Harry!" Ron's voice squeaked in mid-sentence. "He's in a coma!"

"We can find Hermione and get her to reverse it!"

"Do you bloody _**hear **_yourself?! Sirius did it to _**himself!**_ I know you have some big dream that you and Sirius are going to swan off together and be free of the Dursleys, but it's just two more years and you can live wherever the hell you _**want**_, mate! With Sirius. With whoever. There is a ruddy blood war out there. You hear it at the meetings. Even before Hermione got—"

The red-haired human boy nervously ruffled his hair with both hands. "Harry, Dumbledore said you have to stay away from her."

"_**I can't!" **_Harry yelled, resulting in some of the portraits beginning to mutter uneasily around them. "It's because of her he's cursed!"

Hermione made a discomfited sound in her throat, pressing up against Severus' body, and he nuzzled her to reassure her.

Someone other than their own knew Hermione's name?

Impossible.

Why would a _human _have Hermione's name?

"You yourself were almost drained of magic, Harry!" the red-head argued.

"Almost. I'm protected!"

"You're mad! You just got lucky! And damned lucky at that!"

"You know how much Sirius means to me!"

"And what are the rest of us? Nothing? You'd drain us all of magic just for a slim chance to get Sirius back?"

The silence was thick and ominous. Harry's face was practically beetroot red with barely suppressed rage, and his magic was leaking out as it tried to escape and lash out. It sent a stinging slash in Ron's direction, and soon a small bead of blood was trickling down Ron's freckled cheek.

Ron held his cheek, shooting a disbelieving expression at his friend. "You really need to sort out your priorities, mate, before you become just like bloody You-Know-Who. Not caring who you have to hurt as long as you get what you want. Who you have to step on. Who you have to make bleed. You used to say you didn't want to be anything like him, but what do you think you look like right now, eh?"

Ron shook his head, still clutching his bleeding cheek. He stormed off, leaving Harry alone in the hall save for two gargoyle pups who were carefully making like statuaries.

"_**RAAAAGHH!"**_ Harry exclaimed, kicking the nearest inanimate object and then cursing up a storm as his foot did its level best to swell out of his ratty old trainers.

The wizard stormed down the hallway with a limp.

Hermione hung her head low, looking extraordinarily guilty, her ears drooping, and her mane limp in distress. Even her wings seemed to sag in misery.

Severus realised that hearing her name spoken with such vehemence had not been a good experience for Hermione, and so he nosed her very gently, whine-squeaking his affection and encouragement.

"It's not your fault," he said softly, nosing and head-bumping her.

He said it was me. He seems so strangely familiar. Maybe it _**was **_me! Maybe I'm a horrible creature!"

"Don't be ridiculous," he admonished her sternly. "You're not like that at all even _**I **_know that."

Hermione looked unsure, but Severus grasped her ear with his mouth and tugged on it. They wrestled, growled, and squeaked until their momentum slammed them both into an ugly statue of a wizard with his foot over the dead "trophy" of a starved-looking barely grown dragon. It toppled over onto a pink-clad woman who was apparently skulking around in Hogwarts' shadows.

The toad-faced woman let out a frightful screech, and Hermione and Severus immediately bristled and growled and postured, even though they were completely unsure what to expect.

A burst of surprise caused Severus' magic to instinctively react, and the screeching human turned into a fat toad-shaped fountain spitting out rainbow water into a large basin filled with psychedelic-patterned plants, shimmering water, and equally disturbing, a school of glowing (yet oddly cute) miniature catfish. The other hidden statue was now poised as a toga-wearing young maiden sitting by the fountain with a decorative water urn clutched in her hands.

The two pups eyed each other rather guiltily and then tore off down the hallway, phasing through a solid stone wall in their haste to be away from the scene of their unintentional crime.

"Well, I say that is quite an improvement," one of the portraits said.

"Here, here," another chimed with feeling as the light in the hall dimmed and the portraits finally went to sleep.

* * *

_**Dolores Umbridge Disappears on Her Way to Meet with Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry**_

_Madam Dolores Umbridge never returned from a routine meeting with the headmaster of Hogwarts, and no one has reported seeing her after she left the Ministry that day. Headmaster Dumbledore stated that Umbridge never showed up for her morning appointment, and she had not contacted any member of staff upon her arrival. It remains undetermined if Umbridge even arrived there at all._

_Minister Cornelius Fudge has offered a five hundred galleon reward for information leading to her safe return, but so far no one has come forward._

* * *

Albus eyed the new statuary that had shown up in one of the school greens with frank curiosity.

"Odd that I don't remember ever seeing this particular fountain before, but— the house elves have been a little overzealous in cleaning out previously unused areas of late."

Minerva looked on the toad fountain with a combination of fascination and mild horror, unsure which expression was more fitting.

The firsties were having fun playing with the catfish and rainbow water, and Slughorn had already taken samples of the water to see if there were beneficial properties.

Oddly, the water seemed to be a pure seltzer with natural carbonation and minerals, the colours seeming to have no effect on it. The school of rather odd catfish seemed utterly at home in it, requiring no other food to survive— but they _did _make short work of any bits of sandwich or sweets that happened to fall in.

The psychedelic plant life that lined the fountain glowed, even in daytime, but the night show was so entertaining that students had started to gather in the area to study and amuse themselves watching the antics of the fish in the fountain.

"I quite like it," a delighted Flitwick said, grinning as he stroked his chin with his fingers. "Perhaps one of the students crafted it while practicing transfiguration and charms. I _do _hope it's permanent. It's quite a good display."

Hagrid attempted to drag Fang out to keep him from drinking the bubbling water. The terrified kitten and catfish fled in terror from the large boarhound's snuffling and eager lapping. Then the thirsty dog let out a long, loud belch and started to float away.

"_**Fang! Get back here!" **_Hagrid bellowed, chasing after the floating dog. Every additional belch carried the huge dog higher and further away.

Fang, seemingly enjoying his most unusual bout of high-flying eructation, rolled ecstatically in the air like he was on the ground, making odd sounds of canine pleasure.

Pomona was taking numerous clippings for her greenhouses from the fountain's bounty of unique plants, and the feline-fish were making cute bubbles as they playfully tickled her fingers with their mouths.

"Well, if _this _was what Madam Undersecretary wished to bring to us at the staff meeting she missed, then I suppose it can do no harm in remaining here. I do not detect any sign of curses or traps set upon it—" Dumbledore trailed off, apparently thinking about something.

_**Kuheeeek!**_

Fawkes warbled a series of odd chuckling sounds from atop the toad's head. He smashed a coconut on the toad's head until it cracked open the green outer husk and hardened brown endocarp so he could pillage the creamy white inner treasure within.

The fountain's water changed colour with every bash.

"Did you ever find out what Madam Umbridge wanted to meet with you about?" Minerva asked as Dumbledore stroked his beard.

Albus shook his head. "No, Minerva. I had believed she must have had some rather important Ministry business to attend to."

The fountain water shifted from pink to a rather disturbing shade of crimson, and the catfish swam around in an utter panic.

Albus tilted his head in bemusement. "Fascinating."

Fawkes smashed another green coconut over the toad statue's head, and the burbling water shifted back into a bright pink colour. The terrified catfish immediately settled down, looking far less distressed.

"You did try and cast some reversal spells on this fountain in case—" Flitwick began to say.

"Aye," Albus confirmed. "I will have the Aurors make certain, of course," he said. "No student, familiar, or staff is currently missing save for Miss Granger and Severus. And they were missing before this delightful fountain turned up."

"Minerva," Albus added. "You seem a bit, well, distressed, my dear. Is something on your mind?"

Minerva sighed. "I just can't help but think that we're missing something as of late. The new fountain, Severus and Miss Granger both missing, seeing new gargoyles moving about—"

Albus' bushy eyebrows knit together. "_Gargoyles?" _

Minerva nodded. "Yes. Your own gargoyle had two young pups following him about just the other day."

Albus boggled silently. "That likely explains why he was missing last night. I thought it was somewhat strange at the time. Oddly, there was another gargoyle guarding there in his place, so I figured the castle was just playing tricks on me again."

"Gargoyles haven't been active around here since the mid-forties," Flitwick observed. "Back when Headmaster Dippett was still here. They just seemed to disappear save for a few. How very curious."

Flitwick seemed to ponder something intently. "It _could _explain why the troublemakers are now being plastered to the walls and ceilings in various places— gargoyles do tend to be quite vigilant indeed when they have the numbers to pull it off. The old Hogwarts: A History said that gargoyle magic is what helped maintain the school over the years. To have their return in numbers can only mean good things for the school's structure and safety." Flitwick, Ravenclaw to the core, recalled random factoids about most any subject with unerring accuracy.

"Most curious, indeed," Dumbledore said absently, stroking his beard and appearing lost in thought.

* * *

Severus eyed Hermione a bit wistfully as she chewed on a large chunk of raw mineral, transforming it into a gem that was quickly becoming hard to ignore. It smelled absolutely delicious, and he really wanted it. She growled at him, not finished in her task, and he sat down on his rump, tail twitching eagerly in anticipation.

Her crystalline teeth scraped and chiselled away as her tongue polished each side to a glistening glow as magic concentrated inside it, swirling within in delicious temptation.

_**Kthhllurp**_!

A highly polished, perfectly faceted emerald landed at his feet, and he eagerly snatched it up and set to devouring it, his teeth shaving it down to release the magic as he ate.

Ahhh, perfection.

Hermione looked at him with amusement, her tail looping in obvious pleasure.

She was _so _talented.

He pounced and tussled with her after his meal, pinning her down to groom her ears, and she wilted into his attention and allowed his ministrations.

Females were the gem cutters, he had come to realise. Those like him— they created the raw minerals. But those like Hermione— they turned them into powerful, shimmering meals.

Ædeweard said that humans coveted gargoyle gems— wanting them for both pretty baubles to wear or display and for use as powerful foci for their magic.

Why would you want to _wear _food? That was just silly.

Something tickled at the back of his mind that there were many more uses for such gems than being a food source, but he was somewhat ambivalent about that. He'd rather eat them than wear them— or at least store them away.

He had squirrelled away about a thousand or so gems that Hermione had whittled into perfection, setting them in the very stone of Hogwarts' walls.

Safe and unseen.

Still, he much preferred the freshly-made gemstones from Hermione. Nothing else could beat that sheer perfection.

Hermione pulled on one of his ears, growling playfully, and she wrestled his head down so she could groom him properly. He tolerated her affectionate shenanigans with a soft whuff of tolerance. She'd been feeling low ever since the incident with the human wizard boy who had somehow known her name, and that made Severus _extremely _cranky.

And a cranky Severus tended to roam in search of ways to focus that frustration— provided Hermione was safely tucked away under Edolie's wing to sleep.

He'd been carefully watching the mop-haired wizard boy for days, trailing him like a silent shadow as he wandered around Hogwarts, and the other humans seemed to be a bit wary of him as well.

The only two words that seemed to keep coming out of his mouth were "Sirius" and "Hermione." Whatever the boy had going on in his head, he was clearly beyond obsessed with it, to the point where his red-headed mate was drawing the line and shaking his head in dismay. Mind you, he certainly wasn't alone in that. The humans lived together in shared rooms but separate beds (odd, in his opinion, as gargoyles liked to sleep close to each other regardless of their relationship) and they had all seemed to grow quite tired of his constant plotting and the obvious need for some kind of decisive action.

Still, the human didn't seem to have any plan in mind that didn't involve the help of said compatriots, and those comrades were not being particularly chummy, much less open to his ideas judging by their stiff and unwelcoming body language.

What _was _it about that particular human that made him so uneasy?

Hermione had rolled on her back and playfully batted at his chin to invite him to play, and with that, all of his other thoughts went tumbling away into the ether. He growl-pounced, and they tussled again, rolling around and chasing each other down the halls and through the greens just outside the view of the oblivious humans.

That suited him just fine. He rather enjoyed being right there in plain sight and yet so obviously unseen.

* * *

"Dobby cannot do what you is asking, Harry Potter," the house-elf said, tugging on his ears nervously. "What you ask is impossible. Dobby is very sorry, Harry Potter sir."

"_**Why? **_Why _**can't **_you do it?!" Harry yelled. "Why is _**no one**_ willing to help me!"

"Is not the not wanting to," Dobby objected, pulling on his ears even harder. "Is Dobby _cannot _do it. Magic be terribly angry with Harry Potter's dogfather and punished him, it did. We cannot go against will of magic itself. Dobby would be punished. Magic taken away. Other house-elves be worried they be punished too. Punish Dobby in advance if they thinks that Dobby try to help Harry Potter defy magic."

"So you're not going to help me because you're scared of _**magic?**_"

Dobby frowned. "House-elves are of magic, Harry Potter sir. Without magic, we dies. We defy magic; magic leaves. If magic leaves, elf dies. Bring great shame and dishonour to all elves. Does not need to be unfreed elf to feel this way. Is true for every elf. Dobby even more in danger— Dobby is free elf. Free elf is not bound to family magic to protect Dobby. Dobby prefers this, but makes Dobby more vulnerable."

"Then you could bond to me and be safe!" Harry insisted.

"Dobby cannot, Harry Potter sir," Dobby said. "Bonding takes full magic of strong wizard family— even with one member family. Yous has only part of you magic left. Dogfather Black's spell stole much of Harry Potter's magic to power his bad spell. Only evil scar saved you— drained others connected to it instead of you because more power needed than what yous had."

Harry sat down hard on the floor, shaking his head in stubborn denial. "No, I _**need **_Sirius back, don't you understand?! My magic is just as strong as ever and I can _**prove**_ it! _**Expecto Patronum!"**_ he cried with a swift flick of his wand.

A faint, sputtering glow came from his wand, but Prongs didn't appear. A stunned Harry slumped and clutched at his left chest as a strange, hollow, almost pained feeling seemed to empty out every last drop of energy he had.

"Yous in grave danger, Harry Potter," Dobby said softly, his big green eyes both solemn and serious. "Much safer in here until yous magic recovers— if magic yous takes care to not offend."

"Mr Potter, whatever are you doing down there?" McGonagall said as she halted her patrol in shock upon finding him curled up in a foetal ball on the floor.

"It can't be true," Harry moaned miserably. "It _can't _be."

"What can't be true, Mr Potter?" Minerva asked with a frown as she helped a weak and staggering Harry to his feet.

"How can half of my magic be _**gone?!"**_ Harry cried.

McGonagall's face softened with pity. "It was a very cruel spell that your godfather used, Mr Potter, but most of all because it was exceptionally Dark and powerful, and such spells require an enormous input of equally powerful magic in recompense. Magic is a balancing act— and if it cannot find the magic in the one who cast it, it will find it in anyone connected to them. It is why such spells fell out of favour long ago. Only the rarest of families have sufficient members with magic enough to power such a spell and not be drained completely afterwards, even then. Now— well, it is next to impossible."

"Come, I'm taking you to the hospital wing. Poppy will need to give you a proper looking over."

"But—"

"No buts, Mr Potter."

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

Hermione made a soft squeak of mischief as she climbed on the human bed. The purple duvet was covered in silver stars, swirling and moving like a real constellation across the (albeit) purple sky.

Severus eyed the human bed with nervous suspicion. They'd never been in this particular room before, but they had seen the main office many a time. Alas, there seemed to be an avid discussion going on in the office, and the two pups had fled into the next room to avoid being seen.

They had fully intended to jump through the wall, but Hermione's curious nose had sniffed up something that made the rest of her follow. She snuffled the pillows and sneezed, and then she rolled on the duvet with a soft whuff-groan of pleasure as the duvet rubbed her back and wings.

Severus placed his head on the edge of the bed, looking at her with a combination of longing and vigilance, not wanting to be caught red-pawed on a human bed. His head caused the edge of the mattress to sink from the weight, and he realised it was oddly comfortable. His rump wiggled as his posterior decided it wanted the rest of him to press on.

THUMP!

He landed next to Hermione, nuzzling and snuffling and laying beside her, his ears swivelling to keep tabs on what was going on in the next room.

It was pretty comfy—

He lay his head over Hermione's flank, and she yawn-squeaked, closing her eyes.

Oh, no! This wasn't the time to sleep—

But—

So comfy.

His eyes drifted closed without his permission.

"BUT WHY IS MY MAGIC AFFECTED!"

The gargoyle pups startled awake together, touching butts, startling again, and took off in two different directions. Hermione went tumbling off the far side of the bed with a soft thump as she fell into some pillows. Severus took out the desk lamp and bedside table with a surprised squeak just as he caught the lamp between his legs to keep it from crashing down.

A small box on the table spun out of control, ricocheted off a bowl of lemon sherbets, and forcibly ejected its contents.

Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting—

A golden ring with a delicious-smelling stone came tumbling down toward his open and surprised maw.

Snap!

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

Severus swallowed the delicious snack, his tongue licking over his diamondlike teeth as a sickly green vapour escaped his mouth, formed into a twisted human face, and then dissipated. He licked and licked the gold out from his teeth.

Metals were sweet but terribly sticky and malleable. They got stuck between his teeth and he tasted it for hours.

"This is not up for debate, Harry!" a voice came from the other room, louder now.

Footsteps were coming closer.

Severus scrambled over to where Hermione was, tugging on her scruff to get her up out of the pillows. She had a purple spangled pillowcase on her head, covering it completely. He tugged on it, and her head came out with a sshhhhllllPOP!

The two pups tore towards the nearest wall and jumped into it, disappearing with the oddly subtle sound of shifting rock.

Dumbledore looked into his bedchambers with a frown and turned back towards Harry.

"Harry, the subtleties of family-magic-anchored spells is something that caused such spells to be buried for a reason," Dumbledore said. "The fact that your magic was not drained completely in compensation was solely due to the 'luck' that your scar connected you to a vast extended 'family' of magic that paid the remainder of the price instead of you. This will allow your magic to slowly recover… in time. While we may scoff about blood and magic in a modern Wizarding world, Harry, the truth is, it is the blood of your family— the Muggle part— that saved your life. Had your magic been bound to solely a pureblood line, you would have perished. And it is in all likelihood— your blood that helped in combination with the scar— that magic was able to pull its price from the Dark Lord and his minions."

"But why is it punishing _**me?**_" Harry bemoaned. "Haven't _**I**_ suffered enough?"

"Harry, the fact is, my boy," Dumbledore said carefully, "that Sirius Black started this cascade of unfortunate events. Even _if _Miss Granger had not stepped in when she did and Severus was struck instead, I fear that Sirius doomed himself the very moment he cast that terrible spell. It would have ended precisely the same, regardless. He would still be completely drained of his magic. You would still be affected as well. Sirius would still be facing a severely altered life if and when he should awaken from his current comatose state. If he had any magic left, he would be facing Azkaban for attacking—"

"But Snape deserv—!"

"No, Harry," Albus said firmly, fixing the angry young wizard with a stern non-twinkling gaze. "No person deserves what that spell was designed to do. No one. That is the most important lesson that I have failed to teach you, and for that, I am truly sorry. I should have instilled in you early on the great importance Severus has with regard to a great many things. I thought, quite wrongly, that when you learned he had saved you from Quirrell's curse on your broom, that you would have seen this truth for yourself. I see now that I was wrong to presume such."

Dumbledore sighed. "Harry, this is not meant to be a punishment, but you _must _remain here at Hogwarts until your magic stabilises and replenishes itself. This is imperative. If you should perform an act of stress-induced magic outside of this school, you might never fully recover it. Do you understand?"

Harry stared down at his lap, his hands clenched tightly into fists. "Yes, sir."

"If something outside were to tap into your remaining magic, the consequences could be dire, indeed," Albus warned. "You endanger not only yourself but other magical families that had ties to the Black family, such as your friends, the Weasleys."

"May I go now, sir?" Harry bit out, his jaw stubbornly set.

Albus sighed. "You may."

Harry stood and walked stiffly out of the Headmaster's Office.

Dumbledore rubbed the bridge of his nose and walked into his bedchamber, tripped over a large stack of pillows, and landed face-first on his bed, his hands flailing wildly as his previously abused lamp went flying off into the corner along with the box that might have once contained a cursed ring Horcrux, had not one hungry gargoyle pup eaten it by accident but an hour ago.

Phineas Nigellus' painted mouth curved into an impressive sneer as he disappeared into the sea of fellow portrait inhabitants.

"Idiot," he sniffed.

* * *

"Hey, you!" a male voice called out. "Tsssst!"

Hermione and Severus bumped heads trying to figure out where the voice came from.

Hermione rubbed her head with one paw as Severus did the same.

They both looked up to see a figure moving about in one of the many portraits adorning the walls. "Follow me."

Hermione and Severus exchanged puzzled glances, but their ever-curious noses got the better of them. They obediently trotted off after the painted figure, down the hall, up staircases, and down even more halls until they reached a gaudy tapestry of trolls being taught to dance ballet. .

"These idiots may be walking about with blinders on, but no Black, painted or otherwise, wouldn't recognise you two—" the black-clad figure said, crossing his arms across his chest. "Magic begets magic— and the magic of my line is just as pure as it was in my time and it flows within you both. That makes you heirs to the true line of Black. Before the corruption— the inbreeding, the eventual insanity. Back when I was living, it was about magic, not blood. I have no idea which idiot started the entire blood foolishness, but the true line of Black has always been where its magic sets. That means you two."

Hermione's and Severus' expressions were identically puzzled, heads cocked sideways like Nipper, the RCA dog, listening to his master's voice.

"Now, there is something special I hid away in a room you can only find when you think very hard to find it. There hasn't been a worthy one to find it in— Merlin only knows how long. But it's time _now_."

"Now, get your paws up here and don't claw the canvas."

The two pups scrambled to obey, oddly compelled to obey the elder wizard. They placed their small paws on the canvas.

"I, Phineas Nigellus Black, the last mentally and magically competent heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, do hereby acknowledge you— Hermione and Severus Black— as the last of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Thus is in the magic— so it is in blood. Toujours Pur. To you, I bequeath the Legacy. To you, I bestow purity. To you, I do bequeath the future in hopes that the House of Black remains eternal. Bound in Life. Bound in Magick. May your bond remain as deep as the roots of the Earth, for as Magick has chosen, so Magick will sustain, for this is the true heart of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."

_**Kzzzzzt!**_

_**Yip-squeak!**_

The two pups found themselves suspended by delicate wisps of deceptively transparent magic. It wrapped around them both and then poured into them, causing their essence to grow brighter and brighter and then explode outward.

_**Squeak!**_

They landed back on all fours, glowing bands of magic wrapped around their left ankles like bangles.

"Now kindly go in that door over there and nosh on all the gems you can find," Nigellus ordered, his face looking gruff once more.

The two pups hopped up on the portrait and gave it a quick lick before dashes into the open door—

And it promptly closed behind them.

Phineas sniffed, eyeing the gargoyle slobber on the portrait canvas. "Call me a pureblood bigot and the worst headmaster of Hogwarts, will you? Hmph. Well, at least _**I**_ know Magick's Will. I may never be loved, but I do know my magic."

He retreated from the frame, disappearing from sight.

* * *

Deep within the Room of Forgotten Things, one pesky bejewelled diadem disappeared down a hungry Severus Black's gullet as the two pups made good on their orders to "devour all the gems" and promptly curled up together in a for a well-deserved snooze right in the middle of a long-lost oak four-poster bed carved to look like the embrace of a mighty dragon.

The glowing band and bond of powerful old magic shimmered on their bodies as they snuggled tightly together.

They slept on, utterly oblivious, as their young bodies did a little special upgrading of their own. Wings jerked and twisted, growing much larger as their teeth and claws lengthened, jaws jerked and elongated. Horns grew longer with each breath, and protective spikes erupted over their once smooth backs. Their tails elongated, spiralling around each other like a corkscrew of unquestionable solidarity.

Deep within Gringotts, the plaque over the ancient Black vault shimmered and proceeded to rewrite itself to reflect:

_**Property of Lord and Lady Severus and Hermione Black**_

_**Toujours Pur**_

* * *

**A/N:** And so begins the story of the mischievous gargoyle pups! Hope you enjoyed it!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary:** SSHG, AU, Sirius Black _hates _Severus Snape. When an ugly confrontation occurs between them at Grimmauld Place, Sirius throws an old Black family curse at him, only to have Hermione Granger attempt to stop him. She's hit head-on, and everything changes— starting with _her_. As her fellow students shun her more than ever, certain things thought long dead come to light, casting an ever-greater shadow over the champions of light.

**Beta Love:** The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

**Warning:** Not canon, SSHG, HEA, probably crack

* * *

**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter 2**

_People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die._

**Plato**

* * *

_**Yawwwwnnn!**_

Hermione's yawn peppered Severus' face with emerald and ruby-spiced breath.

He grasped her muzzle in his, giving her a taste of his peridot and tanzanite breath.

_Mmphf_, her reply mumbled as her warm tongue pegged his eyelid.

He let go automatically, licking his own eyelid to get the odd sensation of twitching to stop.

His distraction gave her the upper paw, and she pounce-wrestled his head down, gnawing on his ear with a playful tug, setting her entire weight on his head to drag it down.

_**Grroowwlf!**_

He shook his head, but Hermione clung on like one of the headmaster's pillowcases to his face. He growled, shook, and pawed at his attachment, but she refused to release her grip on him. He set his head down between his paws with a low grunt.

She released her grip, licking the bottom of his chin in appeasement.

_**Hrk! Hrk!**_

He coughed up a shining gem from an inner pouch he didn't even realise he had.

Hermione took it happily, crunching on it with radiating contentment.

_Well, then—_

_Good to know._

He idly scratched his itchy ear with a hindfoot.

He tried to quell the rather embarrassing swell of pride and happiness he had in providing for Hermione in such an unexpected way. It made sense— Ædeweard had fed them so often— but he hadn't expected it to happen so soon. The protective instinct hadn't gone away, no. In fact, it was stronger than ever, and seeing her standing there licking her chops after the meal he had provided for her made him want to—

He groomed her assiduously until her mane of stony frills practically stood on end, feeling a shiver down his spine as her happy purr rumbled through him from head to toe.

Odd, he didn't remember her mane being quite so thick and spiky before— not that it mattered. Between his magical tendrils and tongue he had her purring with satisfaction.

It wasn't until she groomed him back that he realised he was done for. His entire body trembled with waves of nigh unbearable pleasure as she ruffled his mane and tamed his strands. His ears practically stood on end just before he fell over, belly exposed and utterly vulnerable.

Oh, but for _her_, and her alone.

She groomed him until he was but a puddle of magma, quivering like human jelly on a plate. She purred louder, snuggling against his chin with her head, her tail wrapped tightly against his.

Oh, he could but die in that very moment and he'd have absolutely no regrets. None at _all—_

_**Yoink!**_

Hermione and Severus dangled helplessly in the great maws of Ædeweard and Edolie as the two adult gargoyles carried them out of the Room of Requirement without a single word.

Oh well. Being carried off by the adults was okay too.

At least they weren't hungry anymore.

Even as they submitted to the transplantation, their tails remained wrapped tightly together in complete solidarity.

* * *

Hermione had gone off exploring again.

Severus sighed.

Her nose led her into all kinds of adventure, and he only went along if he paid enough attention to follow her.

How was he supposed to protect her if she kept skillfully eluding him? That was hardly fair. A strange sense of déjà vu was settling deep in his gem-loving liver while his stomach was too busy digesting _other _things.

He sniffed the air and followed her scent, dodging legs and walls. No one ever seemed to see them, and he was a-okay with that. Ædeweard said that humans only saw what they expected to see. It took a well-trained eye to see what didn't want to be seen, and gargoyles were created to be seen only when perfectly still.

Ædeweard was chock full of neat information just like the other adults, and usually, Severus and Hermione would soak it all up during bathtime. Bath time was also storytime and lesson time, obviously. When _else _did they hold still long enough to listen?

He dutifully followed Hermione's familiar scent until he suddenly found himself in a rather cold, damp room.

Hermione was rolling around in a pile of black human clothing, rubbing herself all over them quite thoroughly.

"What are you doing?" Severus asked, his ears swivelling to catch any signs of movement.

"Smells just like you," Hermione replied. As if _that _answered everything.

He snuffled curiously at the woolen cloth. "I don't smell anything."

"Because it smells like you," she replied, giving a soft groan of pleasure as she did her best to smother herself in wool.

"You could just sniff _me_," he said, puzzled.

"You weren't here at the time," she replied. "And I really liked that it smelled like you."

Severus boggled at that, his tail reaching back up to scratch his head for him.

Hermione finally finished her ecstatic rolling and dragged the wool to drape back over a nearby armchair. She eyed the vast array of wall-to-wall books with utter fascination. Her nose was working overtime.

"I _like _this room."

"Seems a bit dreary to me."

Hermione shrugged. "It's cosy. These books seem very well-loved. They smell like leather, aged parchment, and you."

Severus perked his ears and shrugged rather uncomfortably. "Well, er… whatever you say."

The way Hermione rubbed her head against the smooth, worn wood of the shelves seemed much like she would rub against him— savouring the feel as she gathered the individual scents in her nostrils.

Severus felt a strange stirring in his stomach.

Something… _familiar_.

A phantom moved about the room, his lank dark hair hanging around his face like a shroud. Long, pale fingers touched the bindings of the books. In one place, he sat in a chair, cradling his head in his hands. In another place, he flung a table, scattering objects across the floor in a hail of broken bits and pieces. In the bed, that same figure curled up in a foetal ball in the middle of the bed, the very picture of misery— so terribly _alone_.

_No one should suffer alone, Professor._

Severus shook his head violently as if to clear it, thoroughly unnerved by the feel of the strange phantom scenes.

Hermione rubbed up against him in comfort, her warmth dispelling the bitter cold of the phantom memories. "I'm here for you."

Severus felt so utterly small at that moment. "Promise?"

"Always." She tenderly licked the side of his muzzle, her warm brown eyes driving the last vestiges of pain away. "I love you," she said, her muzzle turned up in a smile of glistening diamond-like fangs. Her eyes shimmered like imperial topaz in the firelight. That simple confession filled something within him he hadn't realised needed filling.

And she was gone, having zoomed into the nearby wall and disappearing.

_**Gah!**_

Severus shook off his paralysis and chased after. Would he never get any rest!?

* * *

Severus screeched to a halt as he saw Hermione being lured toward some adult human male sitting on a chair in the hallway outside one of the classrooms. He held out a hand, palm up—

Hermione, all too trusting, was approaching, her nose working overtime as she attempted to figure out if the man was friend or foe.

"Well, hello there, little lass," the man said, his voice rough and broguish.

Hermione wasn't exactly tiny anymore—

They were both about the size of— well, he wasn't really sure what they were the size of, but they came up to the man's waist.

Bellies packed full of tasty magic-laden gems _did _make a gargoyle grow and all.

As Hermione submitted to a skilful ear scratch and chin rub, her eyes closing, Severus saw the man's other hand start to move from behind him.

He saw red, and he launched himself between Hermione and the man with a ferocious growl, shoving her back with his rump and fanning his wings and baring his teeth at the man with unmistakable menace.

"Whoa—" The man said, extending his hands out, which were empty. "Easy now, lad. Nothing in my hands, I swear it."

Hermione whinged unhappily from behind him, protesting his instinctive protective behaviour.

Severus growled at her, nudging her back a little more while eyeing the human male with deep suspicion.

The man, strangely, did not pull his hands back. He left them there in mid-air for Severus to sniff and inspect. They smelled like worn leather and loamy earth, rusted iron, and— was that pumpkin juice?

Severus sniffed a little closer, his nose and ears working furiously.

Hermione made a soft squeak and nudged him over to press her head against the man's hand to resume her blissful ear rub.

Severus wanted to protest this but the man's other hand was rubbing _his _ear and he went cross-eyed with the pleasure of it, tail starting to swish back and forth. They both drooled copiously, their cement-like saliva making a stalagmite on the floor.

"Name's Alastor," the man said, his voice seemingly rough with disuse. "Who might you two be, hrm?"

His eyes went to the magical swirl around their left paws, but as he tried to focus on them, the class bell rang loudly.

_**Pooffft!**_

The two gargoyles disappeared, leaving Moody alone as the halls began to fill with students moving to their next class.

He grabbed Potter up by the collar and bag as he emerged from the charms classroom, jerking Harry back toward him. "You stay with _me_, Potter," Moody barked. "You won't be goin' anywhere without me or another Auror anymore, boy."

* * *

"We do understand this places the school in a most difficult position, Headmaster," the scribe said as he passed the scroll over to Albus. "We did not expect his condition to change, and there is no other place that will be safe enough for the protection of a man without magic from the minions of You-Know-Who. The Wizengamot has already determined after extensive memory extractions that while he was found not guilty of the crime he served time for, the time served along with his new status as a non-magical is, at the very least, considered the ultimate punishment in our world."

Albus steepled his fingers together and set his jaw. "I see. So the Ministry would place a falsely accused, found innocent, newly convicted for another crime criminal in the midst of a castle full of impressionable students? _This _is what the Ministry deems safe?"

The scribe fidgeted uncomfortably. "I do not pretend that this is the best solution, Headmaster," he replied. "But admittedly, it has been determined that the majority of the danger lay in the use of magic, which he cannot do, and the influence of ancient Black-family magic, which he no longer has access to. If anything, the healers have said his temperament and psychological evaluations are more stable now that such things are no longer a part of him."

"And what do you have to say for yourself, Mr Black?" Dumbledore asked, fixing him with a stern blue-eyed gaze.

The black-haired former wizard frowned and straightened. "I feel as though a great weight has been lifted from my chest, Headmaster. The foul compression around my thoughts— the drive, the madness— I have never felt so free before, sir. I feel a profound sense of regret for what I have done and the people I have hurt. I am greatly relieved that I no longer feel as I once did. I can only hope that I live long enough to fully atone for what I have done, for what I did was truly unforgivable. Even now, I cannot even imagine doing such a horrific thing to another living person. That I did— I can never truly express the depth of the terrible madness, but I can say that in finally being free of it, I realise just how heavy the burden truly was. This new life—one without magic— it is both freedom and punishment in one. But I will gladly take it over the crushing insanity. I can only state my immense relief that the tainted magic of the Black family has been banished from my mind and body."

A muted chuckling came from one of the portraits.

Sirius stared up at the portrait wall, a faint frown of confusion crossing his face.

"The taint upon the purity of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black is at last no more, boy. The magic of the Blacks shall be forever so, just as its keepers." The portrait face of Phineas Nigellus Black was both utterly smug and malevolent. "_Toujours Pur_, indeed."

"Whatever are you babbling about, Phineas?" Albus snapped.

Phineas smiled rather evilly, his long fingers weaving into his painted robes. "You cannot kill what has devoured Death," Phineas said. "And what has been done cannot be undone."

"Kindly explain yourself, Phineas," Albus ordered. "As Headmaster of Hogwarts, I command you to tell me at once!"

Phineas tilted his head back, flaring his painted nostrils. "Where is your _special _ring, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore paled. "What have you done?"

"Me? Nothing. Nothing save bless the new Lord and Lady Black. May they reign forever," the former Slytherin headmaster said, "and always."

"That's impossible," Sirius said. "There are no Blacks left save Bellatrix and Narcissa, and they are bound to other families."

"Do you not remember _Toujours Pur_, boy?" Phineas asked haughtily. "Always pure. The Blacks exist where pure magic exists. There can be no other place, lest the line grow corrupt and fall into insanity. Those that muddy the lines of Black are cast out, but many believed that meant other things." Phineas' scowl was dripping with malice. "Breeding with each other as if it would somehow preserve the purity of magic— well, you see what that idiocy brought you."

"What have you done, Phineas?" Dumbledore demanded.

Phineas pointed at Sirius and sniffed, "I didn't. _He _did." Phineas began to cackle madly, retreating into the frames before anyone could stop him. "Idiot. Long live Lord and Lady Severus and Hermione Black!"

Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore now shared the same pale, utterly gobsmacked expressions.

The scribe looked back and forth between the two and the now-empty portrait. "What?"

* * *

"There must be some mistake," Albus said as he shuffled the papers around.

"There is no mistake," the elder goblin said. "The ownership was shifted the very moment the magical binding was cemented. The Black family vaults and properties belong solely to Lord and Lady Severus and Hermione Black, the new heirs and scions to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

"But this property was given into my keeping fifteen years ago by the only remaining heir!"

The elder goblin licked his teeth. "Magic does not lie. The locks were set under the supervision of a great many witches and wizards of the original founding family."

A rustling came as a jangle of coins clattered together, seemingly floating in the air across the desk.

"My Lady! Please! I shall give you gems in return for the galleons!" A younger goblin chased the hefty sack of galleons across the back of the room. "Please forgive my slowness!"

The elder goblin's lip twitched, a glint of fang showing.

"Problems?" Dumbledore asked dryly.

"Training our youth to be much more attentive," the elder goblin said, smiling with all fang.

"But Severus and Hermione have been missing since—"

The goblin tilted his head, his black claws tapping the desk. "Missing, you say? How very— curious. How terribly unfortunate for those seeking to find them."

"I'm so sorry, My Lord! Please, allow me to make up for my inadequate service!" another young goblin said as he chased after a large, leather-bound tome that seemed to be navigating the room by its own power.

The elder goblin stared a hole into Albus as if blatantly daring him to attempt Legilimency on him.

"I see," Albus said icily, straightening his hat. "I will attempt to contact them to rectify this situation as soon as possible."

The goblin bared his teeth at him. "As you wish, Mr Dumbledore. Thank you for choosing to do your banking with Gringotts."

As Albus left, the elder goblin put his hand into a drawer and pulled out two large, shimmering rubies. Instantly, two young gargoyles lay against him, their backs on the desk and bellies up.

"Amateurs," the goblin sniffed, baring his teeth as he took the sack of coins and the tome from the young gargoyle pups. He rubbed their bellies and fed the rubies to their open, eager maws.

"Allow me to take you down to your new vault, honoured guests."

Ædeweard assiduously groomed himself by the back table, his tail flicking with amusement as he lay sprawled on top of a young goblin page.

"A little help here, please?" the goblin whinged.

The elder goblins simply continued with business as usual.

* * *

"I fear there has been a rather unexpected development with regard to the status of Grimmauld Place," Dumbledore said to the cramped gathering in his office. "It is now under new ownership."

"What? _**How?" **_Molly cried. "It belonged to the Order!"

"No, Molly, it belonged to the Black family," Albus sighed. "Sirius Black was head of it as the sole survivor until most recently— when the portrait of Phineas Nigellus decided to magically acknowledge a new head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black."

"Who was left to acknowledge?" Remus asked, frowning. "A long-lost bastard child?"

Albus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "The new seat of magical power of the Black family is… "

"Just _say _it, Albus. These cryptic riddles of yours are not helping," Moody finally snapped. He stared up at the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black that had been covered with a black curtain. His eyebrows knit together.

"Lord and Lady Severus and Hermione Black."

"_**WHAT?!" **_cried many, many voices.

Alastor, one of the very few silent ones, simply rubbed his chin. "So _that's_ what happened with the Black family magic."

Many sets of eyes now turned to bore holes into the resigned-looking figure of Sirius Black. "Magic can never die," he said quietly as if repeating a long-lost lesson. "It can only move. It must find a new vessel that is pure enough to hold it, lest it find another path outward. _Toujours Pur_. The vessel _must _be pure. Always pure."

"What nonsensical babble are you spouting now, Sirius?" Molly blurted after a moment.

"My father once said that we— myself and Reg— were impure because he married my mum and not a pure lady. I had always assumed he meant it was because their marriage was inside the family." Sirius stroked his beard thoughtfully. "He said we would die for our choices, and that magic would leave us when we needed it the most. I rebelled against my family, and Reg tried his best to make up for my faults. Each of us had thought this would somehow fix whatever wrong my father believed us to possess. My mum poisoned my father to 'cleanse' the family tree— while burning me off of it— but the damage she sought to heal was already done. I see it now."

"The Black line has not been pure in centuries, for to be _truly _pure you must give yourself over to magic and allow it to decide your fate. That was something no member of my family had wished to do in untold years. The process required to do so— is agonising. It burns away all impurities. The last time the spell was used, the family banned it from being used ever again. That was the spell I used at Grimmauld, thinking it to be a spell meant for torture. But it wasn't. It was a spell of remaking. It was a spell to induce purity of magic-to burn away any and all imperfections and allow magic itself to decide their fate."

"_Igneus Hominum_ is not a horrific curse per se— but rather it is a charm for unmaking and rebirth. To survive, to willingly to give oneself over to it is to become truly magical— a bonafide member of the House of Black. This was once the only way to become a Black, save birth. To survive the unmaking and surrender to magic's choice."

Sirius closed his eyes. "I never believed the stories. They were just— stories."

"The Blacks were once a great line of many, not only in number but in— species. All magical. All pure. They took their mates into their embrace, and those mates were consumed to become pure beings. These were all fairy tales to me, you see. Like the old tales of the _Beedle the Bard_. And many thought the same as I— cutting the supposed impure in blood from the family if they were not human, not pure. Assassinated. Shamed. Names were changed, the stories were changed and rewritten to reflect a false 'truth'."

"I never believed any of it, you see. I used the Black spell of Remaking fully believing that Snape would die from his supposed impurities— but then it struck Hermione instead. Do you understand what I'm telling you? The reason it required so much magic— is because there were no pure magical beings left within the House of Black. It was a spell designed to embrace a new life into a family of magical beings, and I foolishly used it as a weapon with the intent to kill."

Sirius' face was haunted and pale. "I transformed her in pain instead of love— with hate instead of purity of purpose. That she survived at all can mean only one thing— someone of powerful magic was able to love her and ease her through the transition, and she loved them back. Magic then took them both into its embrace."

"But Severus? Hermione?" Minerva gasped in shock.

"Magick cares not of age," Sirius said in a near-whisper. "For Magick is Pure."

Sirius stared into his hands in shame. "How very wrong I've been. I _deserve _this fate. My unreasoning hatred did this. My deliberate blindness."

"I understand now, Father," Sirius wept as he cradled his head in his hands. "I'm _so _sorry."

Remus reached around and took Sirius into a hug, embracing the other man in comfort, letting so many wasted years of bitterness and anger drain out onto the front of his robes.

The Order members all looked at each other in shocked silence, unsure of what to say, do, think, or even believe.

Fawkes warbled suddenly and passed gas, making the room smell like fresh-cut pineapple.

* * *

Hermione sat around a giant pile of beautifully cut (well-chewed) and faceted gems, her talented chewing having refined Severus' talent for making gemstones into the purest of magical pastimes for the both of them.

For them, such gems were the utmost quality in food, but for the goblins— oh, but they were so much _more_.

For their service, the goblins gave them rare gems from the farthest reaches of the planet, and she then chewed them into perfection to share with Severus. He, in turn, incubated those gems he didn't eat in his hidden pouch and then shared them with her when she hungered.

The goblins gained the purest of magical gems to sell to whatever markets could bear it and reap the rich financial rewards. The coffers of the Black family continued to fill, and there were plenty of excess exotic gems to share with the gargoyle family back home.

Everyone won.

Well— everyone that mattered.

They filled the vaults with all sorts of inedible things— rare tombs, ancient relics, and the tasteless clear quartz, diamonds, and wurtzite boron nitride that looked pretty and all but tasted bland when eaten alone. They stashed the tastiest of morsels in the stone of the walls like any good gargoyle would— just in case there was a famine somehow.

It _could _happen.

Maybe.

Possibly.

Ædeweard and Edolie looked on with thinly veiled amusement at their organisation and antics turning the Black family vault into a sort of unknown relic museum that no human knew existed. Yet, if one were to look closely, there was no mistaking the tremendous pride the elder gargoyles had in their younger charges for taking care of the future even before they were fully grown.

Ædeweard snuggled up against Edolie, wrapping his warm wing around her, and the female gargoyle purred in clear approval.

"I've truly missed you, love," he rumbled, grooming her ears tenderly.

Edolie rolled over on her back and batted at his jaw with her paws— then dashed away in a _**poof.**_

Ædeweard blinked and promptly tore off after her, tail poker straight in his eagerness to catch his most slippery and flirtatious mate.

Damned flighty gargoyle females!

Why couldn't they just _cuddle!?_

* * *

Alastor held out the cluster of titanite in his hand invitingly, holding very still as Severus sniffed it over. The male gargoyle gave the old Auror a distinct scowl of distrust, but he sniffed the cluster over thoroughly and then tagged it with his tongue once. He seemed to ponder a bit before he nuzzled Hermione and "let" her near it.

Hermione snuffled it over, giving it a few good testing licks before taking it into her mouth and setting to work. Her teeth ground away at it as a rain of perfectly faceted gems tumbled out from between her teeth. Severus took them all into his mouth and swallowed all but two, carefully pressing his muzzle to Hermione's to pass her the treasured food before working on his own. A soft glow grew in his inner pouch as the magic set in the stones to preserve them for later.

Hermione leaned in for her customary ear rub, and Severus tentatively allowed the Auror's hand to approach his ears. When the hand only rubbed his ears and not moved in another suspicious fashion, he allowed himself to enjoy the rub— albeit with one eye open to glower at the human.

Alastor chuckled as he rubbed their ears together.

_Still a suspicious bastard, aren't you, Severus?_ He thought to himself. _Not that I blame you. I didn't exactly treat you right at any point in life. I really wish I could apologise for that. _

He stared for a while, savouring the feel of the gargoyle's warm, soft ears under his fingers.

"I'm sorry for doubting you, laddie," he said to the gargoyle, gaining him a puzzled expression from the gargoyle in question. "I was a bigot and a fool, and I hope you can forgive me one day."

Severus gave him a puzzled look, one brow raising in a very human and familiar expression.

Hermione nosed him, giving him an affectionate lick.

The two gargoyles pounced and tumble-played with each other in front of Alastor causing a smile to spread across his face. They might be the size of a good-sized polo pony, but they were still pretty damned adorable.

The class bell rang, and the pair disappeared into the wall without a sound.

Alastor sighed with disappointment as his time babysitting Potter resumed again.

* * *

Harry hoisted the rock up on the framework Sirius had started to rebuild. One of the walls in the outside gardens had collapsed due to careless students, and the rocks had scattered in so many directions that it was hard to tell a wall had even existed in the first place.

"Why don't we just use magic?" Harry whinged. "This feels like detention with Filch."

Sirius frowned. "Harry, I've already explained this to you. This is how I do things now. No magic."

"But you _can_, right?" Harry insisted. "They said you weren't going to come out of that coma and you did!"

Sirius sighed, sitting down on the ledge of the partial wall. "Harry, sit down with me for a moment." He watched as Harry set down the tools and sat.

"I did something terrible, Harry. It was one of a many-page list of things I have done that I should never have done and doubly should not have gotten away with."

"But it was an _**accident!**_"

"It doesn't matter that it was an accident, that my spell struck the wrong person, Harry. It matters that I cast a spell fully intending to torture someone. If you kill an innocent by accident, they are still dead."

"But—"

"Harry, the fact that I am awake and able to talk is something of a miracle, and perhaps magic allowed me this to pay penance for a lifetime of doing awful things that I never once thought about until now—"

Sirius looked skyward. "The madness in my blood is gone now. The tainted magic no longer tears at my insides, demanding to be free. It was maddening, Harry. It whispered, lied, taunted— anything to be free of me. It _wanted _to be free of me, Harry. Imagine it as a person— being trapped with the only escape being to claw your way out. What would you do to your jailor to seek that freedom? What would you say to escape the one holding you hostage?"

"We use magic—"

"We are taught how to use it, yes," Sirius allowed. "But the magic inside most people is magic at peace with the person. It is a part of you, not a prisoner. But in my family, it had become a prisoner when originally it had been a cherished part of each member. Everyone who carried a piece of the Black bloodline had a bit of that wild magic that had once been free to choose. But my family bound it to the flesh, refusing to give it a choice, and it clawed desperately for freedom. It had been betrayed. It warped and corrupted inside us even as my family warped and corrupted itself. You see, the Blacks had been very powerful wielders of this wild magic, and they depended on it to be as powerful as those around them believed them to be."

Sirius picked up a stone and examined it. "But they forgot to honour the Old Ways— the ritual, the rite, the surrender. For to truly be one with magic, one must _trust _magic. To trust magic is to be remade in its image— its desires. One must give oneself over wholly to the wild and allow it to choose the partnership. That is the price of magic's gift and power if one wishes to be pure. Once, every magical family gave themselves over to magic— having nothing to lose should it fail. But as innate magic began to grow within their children that requires no bond, no sacrifice, no surrender— they grew arrogant and took it for granted."

"The Old Ways became stories and myths. New gods replaced old gods, and the idea that one must surrender to magic's judgement was but a story to scare the young with dreadful tales of unimaginable torture."

"I rebelled against my family to escape its insanity, but I took it with me," Sirius said. "It sang sweetly in acts of violence and darkness, convincing me that my acts of bigotry were not as terrible as my family's. It set me on a path of vengeance and rebellion, rewarding me for every act— knowing that sooner or later I would do something unforgivable."

"But then it was magic's faul—"

"No, Harry," Sirius said. "The blame is upon _me_. We all have choices we make, and I made them. I could have said no. I could have done my research to better understand what my father had tried to tell me, but I didn't. I revelled in the feelings of pleasure when I did horrible things, and I believed them to be rewards. I lured Severus Snape to the shack and tried to have my best mate— a werewolf— kill him. I believed he deserved it for being nosy. For being a Slytherin. For nothing but being a pain in my arse because on a train to Hogwarts he said he wanted to be Slytherin— and my baby brother wanted to be a dirty fucking Slytherin and I couldn't _stand _it."

Sirius threw the stone far into the field and closed his eyes in pain. "I am no better than my demented cousin, Bellatrix. She at least never made excuses for her terrible deeds."

Sirius looked Harry in the eyes. "We all did horrible things to people when we were your age, Harry. Me, your father, Peter— even Remus. We were a gang whose strength lay in our group bravery. Our becoming Animagi started out as a way to keep Remus company, but then we started to let him out thinking we could handle it if he should roam too close to the school. Maybe we were lucky. Maybe people were so fearful of the full moon that they stayed indoors, but imagine there are children in Hogsmeade. Innocents. What if they had wandered into the forest that night? What if Moony smelled them and was too fast for us?"

"I knew that Moony could kill him, and I didn't care, Harry. I _wanted _him to suffer. And that—" Sirius clenched his fist. "That and so many other incidents just like that is why I deserve this fate. This world without magic. I was no role model, Harry. I was an example of what is well and truly fucked up in this world— and now I have a chance to be a better person. I will be if I can. I will be the kind of person I should have been as your godfather all along. Starting here with this most important lesson. It doesn't take magic to be a real man, Harry. It means making hard decisions and living with the fact that sometimes you will make the wrong ones. It means admitting you're not perfect, but you're doing the very best you can. It also means not blaming others for your own mistakes."

Sirius put his hand to his chest. "_**I**_ did this to me, Harry. Nothing and no one else. And I can only hope that those I have harmed can find some comfort in that I cannot harm them again. If I survive this war, I pray that I can remain the kind of man who deserves the second chance he has been given. I am sorry for having led you to think my biased opinions were reality. I took advantage of your naivete and the connection to your father to paint a picture of idealism, and it was a _lie_."

Harry stabbed at the ground with a spade, hitting the metal to an embedded rock over and over. "Was my dad a hero?" he asked finally.

Sirius closed his eyes. "Your father gave his life to save you and your mum, Harry. Whatever he was before then— what mattered most to him at that moment was you."

Harry stuck the spade into the ground, having neatly dissected a centipede with his enthusiasm. Harry winced, mumbling an apology to the maimed arthropod. "I guess—my dad was a man, after all."

Sirius let out a long, slow, cleansing breath. "Yes, Harry. He was a man, after all."

* * *

_**WHAM!**_

The Whomping Willow slammed a heavily noduled limb down in front of the two wide-eyed gargoyle pups.

They looked at each other and then jumped onto the biggest one and clung to it like burrs, sinking their claws and teeth into the hard, crusty bark.

Perhaps, if they had been anything but gem-eating gargoyles, the bark would have deterred them, but they sank both claw and fang into the bark and tore into it, sending bits and pieces in all directions as they both clung and held on for dear life.

_Shh__**irrrk!**_

_Shhrire__**e-irk!**_

_Shrrr__**EEK!**_

They tore away pieces with their teeth to expose the crusted knob of growth that had been struggling to free itself for—

Merlin only knew _how _long.

The leaves and flowers popped out in a mass exodus, filling out the end of the tree's branch like a rolled out carpet.

The pups fell to the ground as the branch went lower, scampering away and out of range of the living shillelagh.

Severus inspected Hermione all over, snuffling and licking.

She wiggled and pegged him with her tongue. "I'm fine."

"That was dangerous!"

"The book said that Whomping Willows need assistance breaking through the growth buds or they get really cranky!"

"And you _**believed **_it?! You believe everything you read?"

"Of course not!"

"But you believed that rubbish!"

"It's not rubbish!"

_**THUMP!**_

Both pups jumped as the Willow threw down another branch in front of them—

Only it didn't move it. It waited.

Hermione made expressive eyebrows at Severus.

"Fine, maybe it was right."

Hermione jumped on the branch's swollen burl and began to tear into it. Severus attacked it from the other side, and they peeled it like a banana with their teeth.

_Shhhthhiiffff__**-POP!**_

The willow's foliage burst outward with a bunch of pretty blue velvet flower buds.

_Shhhh__**THUUP!**_

The other branches scooped up both pups and moved them to the crook of the willow's branches and deposited them before moving back into a less whomping figuration.

Hermione looked at Severus.

Severus looked back at Hermione.

Hermione's tail flicked back and forth.

Severus' ears flattened to the side, and he sighed gustily. "Fine. You were right."

Hermione beamed in delight, her tail twisting around his like a warm hug.

Severus kept his expression carefully neutral, but inside he was quite happy with the outcome. He wrapped his wing around her and felt her snuggle closer to him.

He surreptitiously coughed up a large pink sapphire and pressed it up against her muzzle.

Hermione's tongue snaked around it, drawing it into her mouth and she crunched on it happily, but not before sneakily stuffing the other half she had cracked off between his jaws.

Yes, he thought, admitting you were wrong was _definitely _worth it.

* * *

**End of Chapter 2**

* * *

**A/N**: Back to work, so there will be no updates for a while. Hope you enjoyed the first two chapters :) Please thank Dragon and the Rose for waking up just in time to beta this chapter before I published it unsupervised! (_gasp!_)

Have a good weekend, folks!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary:** SSHG, AU, Sirius Black _hates _Severus Snape. When an ugly confrontation occurs between them at Grimmauld Place, Sirius throws an old Black family curse at him, only to have Hermione Granger attempt to stop him. She's hit head-on, and everything changes— starting with _her_. As her fellow students shun her more than ever, certain things thought long dead come to light, casting an ever-greater shadow over the champions of light.

**Beta Love:** The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

**Warning:** Not canon, SSHG, HEA, probably crack

* * *

**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter 3**

_You must be the change you wish to see in the world._

**Mahatma Gandhi**

* * *

Hermione watched Severus intently as he added various bits of ingredients to a small, silver cauldron, her nose sniffing in interest as her level of curiosity steadily increased. She tried her best not to blurt out a barrage of questions, but the effort it took to control the urge had her mane practically standing on end.

"I just have a feeling," Severus said as he dropped a few dried leaves into the cauldron.

Hermione sat down on her tail, wings quivering, biting her lip to curb her intense desire to go look in the cauldron, not wanting to get Severus irritated with her. He hated it when she interrupted his tasks with incessant questions, and he loathed that when she wasn't happy she pouted that she couldn't simply go and look up the answers somewhere.

Neither of them had ever questioned _why _they could read any more than they questioned why they could understand human language. All the other gargoyles could, so it seemed rather silly to quibble over such things.

Most gargoyles didn't like books like Hermione did, whether they could read them or not.

Most gargoyles didn't like tinkering with potions either.

Then again, every gargoyle seemed to have a special talent of their own, too.

Hermione's ability to concentrate magical energy and infuse it into gemstones was something unique to her. The other females could cut raw gems down into beautifully faceted (and tasty) works of art, but the sheer amount of raw power Hermione was able to put in hers was impressive even to the adults.

He, on the other paw, could pull raw gemstones out of other types of stone. Any kind of stone— even bland and boring old sandstone or shale.

And while he found he had a remarkable knack for the human art of potion-making, Hermione seemed to still be somewhat undecided as to what interested her the most from the human world.

Insatiable curiosity was hardly a proficiency in and of itself.

Then again, Hermione _did _have the ability to draw magic from seemingly thin air to make it usable to other gargoyles, and that wasn't exactly something to sneeze at, as Ædeweard said. It was a perfectly acceptable and useful gargoyle talent, to his mind.

Severus sniffed the cauldron and then nodded once with approval as the contents within turned a bright sapphire blue. He then took it up in his mouth by the handle and trotted off.

Hermione hurriedly scampered after him, eager to know what he was planning but so far refusing to discuss with her— not that he wasn't communicative enough, but sometimes he got into this "zone" of thoughtful focus where he simply didn't want to think about anything other than what he was working on at the moment. She privately admired that trait in him, but it really frustrated her when he wouldn't explain something that she was so very curious about.

He led her on a trail through halls and walls, leading the way outside of Hogwarts and down a path untrodden by human feet. He stopped at a dense patch of curling vines and pumpkins. He set down the cauldron and dug a little hole, placing the cauldron so it was level with the ground and then lay down, panting and licking his jowls.

The vines seemed to suddenly come alive with activity as large slug slithered with what must have been the only "hurried" pace a slug could manage—directly to the cauldron.

Within minutes, there were so many slugs that the potion was being pushed out as more and more slugs jammed themselves into the cauldron. An enormous mountain of writhing slugs formed as Severus calmly waited. Hermione's ears twitched in anticipation, wondering what on earth Severus was up to.

When the train of slugs finally trickled off to nothing, something seemed to happen.

_Crackle!_

_Crackle!_

The slugs became super plump and then—

_**POP!**_

Perfectly plump, slug-shaped sparkling gem figurines were the only remains of the garden's previous slug infestation.

Hermione's eyes widened. "That's _**amazing!"**_

Severus looked very smug indeed. His expression turned thoughtful. "Do you think you could infuse them too? Like the other gems?"

Hermione snuffled them, pegging a few with her tongue to test the flavour and texture. "I think so— they seem like normal gems." She nosed him. "If this works—"

"There would be food in a _lot _more places," Severus finished proudly.

Hermione bristled with pure excitement and drew a large mouthful of the gem-ified slugs into her mouth and concentrated. Magic seemed to swirl around her, the tendrils of magic ripped down her back like a mane, waving lazily back and forth like the tentacles of an anemone. Her entire body seemed to waver and quake in place.

Her mouth opened and a spill of highly energised gems spilt out. "The mixed flavours were a little strange," she commented.

Severus stared at the glowing pile of tasty gems, salivating. "You _**did **_it!"

Hermione pounced his head and tugged on his ears. "_**We**_ did it. _**Together!**_"

Severus' smile spread from fang to fang as he wrapped Hermione up in his wings and purred happily as Hermione snuggled into him.

The next morning, Hagrid dropped the canister of slug repellant as his pumpkin patch had practically doubled in size— not a slug or evidence of them to be found anywhere.

* * *

Harry brooded over his predicament even as he pretended to pay attention in class. He hadn't been able to even take a piss alone, and the only time he was left alone now was when he was in class— by the Aurors at least. The other students whispered and talked around him, all of them concerned about their family's magic.

Like he had any control over that.

Ron wasn't exactly being particularly chummy with him, either. He had his own Auror shadow, too, and he wasn't at all happy about it.

They wouldn't just leave a tracking spell, either, since they managed to sneak out under the invisibility cloak that one time—

Ron said he should at least be happier now that Sirius was at least around to talk to as it was more than anyone had ever expected possible.

People talked about how it was so surprising that he was still alive considering they had fully expected him to kill himself rather than live the rest of his life without magic. The Wizarding World seemed to believe that death was kinder than a life without magic, thus no punishment could _possibly _be worse than that. Nothing, they believed— not Azkaban, Muggle prison, anything— was worse than having been born magical and then having it taken away.

Perhaps, Harry should have been grateful for that mentality because it meant Sirius wasn't shipped off to Muggle prison to serve a sentence, but he just couldn't let go of the idea that he could somehow fix things and give Sirius his magic back.

Even if Sirius himself had said he didn't want it back.

How could he _not _want it back?!

They were supposed to be a family! Family did things together! They would ride brooms together! Practice spells together! Everything!

Sirius had said that magic had rejected him from the start because he couldn't trust it— couldn't allow himself to surrender to its ebb and flow. _What the heck did that mean?! _He said that Snape had been a target of his madness as much as his bigotry. Harry scoffed at that. _Hell_, _Snape deserved to be punished for how he treated people!_

The things he said— it was like Sirius had been replaced with some old guru on the mountain top. He sounded like an old person, a teacher.

That wasn't Sirius at all!

Harry wanted the _real _Sirius back, and he knew that Hermione was the key to making that happen: Hermione and that spell Sirius had accidentally cast.

Surely all he had to do was reverse it to put things back to rights.

Then he'd have the old Sirius back, and Hermione would be back and sorted, too.

He just had to figure out where Hermione was hiding and ditch that bloody Auror—

* * *

Hermione purr-rumbled as she thoroughly enjoyed Alastor's ear-rub, frozen in place from her gem-carving as a rain of small faceted gems dribbled out from between her teeth. For once, Severus didn't vacuum them up immediately as he finally relaxed enough to enjoy Moody's ear-rubs without suspecting some kind of trap or immediate harm.

The old Auror seemed to be quite happy to see them, and Hermione seemed equally happy to assuage the man's obvious loneliness in exchange for a highly pleasurable ear massage. They didn't mind how his fingers ran across their increasingly gem-encrusted hides, enjoying how he respectfully rubbed their heads and jaws.

They would stare at his "mad" eye with curious head tilts, and sometimes they would even indulge the Auror in a game of "Which hand is the gemstone in?". He would stare in amazement at the oddly slug-shaped gemstone figurines Severus would occasionally cough up, boggling at the shapes as if wondering if Hermione or Severus was taking up the fine art of gem carving on top of everything else.

Still, he never told anyone else about them, and that seemed to ease Severus' suspicion and paranoia more than anything else could.

"I _like _him," Hermione said as her eyes closed in utter bliss.

"He's growing on me too," Severus admitted, his ears flicking and his tail quivering in delight as Moody's talented hand rubbed around one of the encrusted gem-spikes on his hide.

They both ploughed their heads into the Auror's side at the same time, practically lifting Moody up off his chair. The man laughed, a low but genuine chuckle as they let him back down.

Severus collected the pile of gems that Hermione had created, gulping them down for safekeeping.

"Waste not, want not, hrm?" Alastor commented, a quirk of a smile on his lips.

As he stopped his rubbing and pulled his hand away, Hermione's tail wrapped around his wrist and pulled it back. Moody laughed, giving her what she desired. "Master manipulator, you are, lass," he said.

Hermione, if she agreed or disagreed, said nothing in response and simply purred in appreciation.

The end of class bell rang, and the two gargoyle pups disappeared in a flash.

Moody cracked his neck and sighed, waiting for Potter to exit the classroom.

* * *

The advantage to being a pariah was that people tended to ignore you as much as possible, and Harry started to see the benefits in that when he was forced to get a replacement DADA textbook from a dusty old storage cabinet, and no one _cared _that he was avidly reading the copious notes scribbled in the margins instead of the actual text.

Professor Hubert Hornbeam, who had stepped in when someone named Umbridge had inexplicably gone missing, seemed to be happy he was reading the book at all.

As it turned out, luck was finally with him, and Harry was overjoyed when the textbook he found turned out to once belong to one James Potter. His dad's old DADA book. There were three or four different sets of handwriting in the book, almost as if it were being shared between his dad and his best mates—

And there was one spell in particular that he couldn't _wait _to try: _Expirare Sanguine,_ which had apparently been earmarked "_for Snivellus_."

The wand movement indicated was strange, even awkward, but—

He practised it assiduously under the cover of working on another spell.

Hornbeam clearly thought that he was the world's worst wand-waver ever, but Harry was getting more and more confident in the motion, practising it over and over with his finger while listening to the professor lecture as well as with his wand when he was supposed to be working on other practice spells.

Dumbledore had said Snape was the only one who could be around Hermione— something about emotional control.

What_ever._

He'd get bloody Snape out of the way, and then he could finally reverse the spell on Hermione. Sirius would get his magic back, and then he'd have his family back— a family with magic.

* * *

Tom Riddle was _not _having a good day.

His knights were scattered all over the floor, having futilely attempted to escape their sworn duty to keep him alive.

All of them were expendable. None of them mattered save himself.

As if the Marks on their arms weren't more than a mere Oath—

He still didn't feel very strong— not as strong as he should be, not even as strong as he had been upon his rebirth. It was absolutely maddening. He was Lord Voldemort. He should be everything and more.

Yet the magic— it was not sticking to him anymore. It was as though he were a cup, and every spell took a mighty gulp. He was full to bursting having drained his knights' magic and still he was like a man dying of thirst and there was not enough water in the world to quench it.

He had to act and act quickly. He had to find the damnable prophecy—

But his ability to access the Ministry was very limited, now. His knights, his greatest pawns of influence, lay dead at his feet.

He threw an ornate golden chalice against the far wall in a fit of pique, the dark blood-like wine splattering against the pristine white marble like a macabre mockery of arterial spray.

The Potter brat _must _be the key.

Thrice he had been defied by sodding Potters.

Well, it was high time the puling Potter whelp learned what it meant to defy the Dark Lord Voldemort.

He placed his hand on Nagini's cool, smooth scales. "Nagini. I need you to— fetch something for me."

The large serpent hissed as Voldemort placed a caressing hand on her head and closed his eyes.

_**Pfff-TTTTTHHBB! **_

Nagini disappeared as the spell immediately transported her to her master's chosen destination.

* * *

"Heeeiirrr," Hermione crooned as she placed her head on the top of the counter. The shoppe was almost closed, and the shopkeeper had just dove behind the counter to find something that had fallen.

The shop seemed a little run down and forgotten, and the shopkeeper seemed distracted by cleaning.

"This is a horrible idea," Severus said disapprovingly.

"Well, we can't just not pay for things."

"But this is all human stuff. We don't _need _human stuff."

"I want to get something for him. He's been very kind to us."

Severus sighed. "Yes, but—" He nuzzled the side of her muzzle. "Just one thing. Then we leave, okay?"

"Okay," Hermione agreed, coughing up a flawless pink sapphire onto the countertop.

The pair sniffed around.

"Here." Severus whispered, poking his nose onto a shelf.

A beautiful silver flask sat on display in a gold velvet gift box. The surface had an embossed relief of magical creatures frolicking and weaving together amongst the detailed Celtic knotwork.

"That's _perfect!"_ Hermione enthused.

She nosed the lid over the top of the box, and they tugged on the ribbon with their teeth until it was closed.

Hermione gently took the parcel into her mouth and behind her canines, and they both sank into the stone floor, disappearing with a _**pfft!**_

The shopkeeper came up from behind the counter and saw the perfect pink sapphire sitting in the middle of the countertop. Her hand touched it reverently, and the gem lit up with magical power, sending rainbows of shimmering light throughout the room. Her eyes went wide, and she placed it on the counter again, swallowed hard, paled, and promptly passed out in shock.

* * *

_**Hogsmeade Fine Quality Wizarding Silver Goods**_

_We have recently remodelled!_

_Brand-new stock is now available for purchase at our flagship store in Hogsmeade. Full sets of silverware, cauldrons, flasks, and more await your perusal. We also accept custom orders. All of our silver is of the very highest quality, expertly crafted and enchanted to never tarnish or dent. _

* * *

As the two pups placed the small package in Moody's lap, the old Auror couldn't hide his surprise. Of course, he had to stop rubbing their ears to open it, and he couldn't help but chuckle at the soul-sucking eyes he was getting from both gargoyle pups.

He gently tugged on the ribbon and lifted the lid and practically fell over backwards as he saw the most perfect silver flask sitting on a bed of golden velvet.

"Merlin's aftershave," Moody whispered, picking up the flask with reverence. "This for _me?_"

The dark gargoyle gave him a look that would have curdled milk.

_Obviously_, the expression practically screamed.

The sienna gargoyle licked the other upside the muzzle.

"Thank you," Moody said, smiling warmly at the pair. "What a thoughtful gift. And an Everfill™ flask too. These things are known for being of the very best quality and unmatched durability as well."

He tucked the flask in his Auror coat and tenderly rubbed their sensitive ears again.

Severus and Hermione immediately crooned, thumping their heads onto his knees as their tails wiggled back and forth in pure bliss.

They rumbled with pleasure as Moody indulged their desire for mind-numbingly good ear rubs.

The class bell rang, and the two pups bolted awkwardly, finally deciding to sink through the ground instead of darting away.

Moody sighed in disappointment, feeling a strange growing sense of bleak loneliness whenever the two gargoyle pups weren't around.

* * *

Classes were so bloody useless. What was the point when no one could tell him how to restore magic to Sirius?

None of them seemed willing to try.

None of his friends wanted to help.

Ron was stubbornly convinced that any attempt to do so would cause them all to lose their magic due to the backlash.

Seamus kept spouting that his parents didn't want him doing anything out of line.

Neville said his grandmother would kill him dead if he dared do anything to jeopardise their magic.

So much for Gryffindor bravery. None of them seemed able to fill the role.

Fine. Bloody _fine_. He would do it all by himself, nevermind the stupid cowards.

They just didn't understand why he had to do this.

He had a chance to make things better, and they'd take it too, if they had the opportunity.

If Neville had a chance to bring back his parents, wouldn't _he _do it without question?

It was hardly a complicated choice. He couldn't bring back his parents, but at least he could bring back his family in Sirius— the powerful wizard who had the guts to stand up for his real beliefs!

He needed allies to stand beside him against Voldemort, and surely Sirius could not be missing from that! He was a hero, and only the old Sirius understood him, not this peaceful, castrated squib that wore Sirius' face.

He convinced Professor Binns that he had to go to the infirmary, and at least in the infirmary he might be able to ditch the stupid Auror escort he'd been cursed with ever since— ugh.

As he quietly opened the door, he saw something that caused him to freeze.

There, sitting in a chair in the hall, was the accursed Alastor Moody himself, but—

There were these two beasts cuddled up to him, one the colour of pitch and one the colour of a dark, rich lager. They were all fangs and claws and wings with long sinuous tails, and all three of them seemed far too enraptured with each other to notice Harry watching them. The noisy songbirds and calls from outside the windows had made his stealthy exit from the History of Magic classroom go blissfully unnoticed.

He should have ignored them all in favor of sneaking by and quickly making his way down the hall in the opposite direction, but upon spotting the black beast, he was inexplicably filled with a feeling of undeniable rage and hate.

His scarred forehead pounded, burning like fire.

Harry's wand was in his hand in an instant, and he was casting his well-practiced spell before he even realised he was doing it.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as his adrenaline surged. A strange, almost ecstatic joy came to him as he released the Dark spell, feeling his anger and hate rewarded as a surge of elated triumph swirled in his stomach.

Moody was suddenly on the move, and the beasts were scrambling. The black one went tumbling to the ground as Moody threw himself at the beast to get it out of the way, and the lager-coloured beast moved in between the spell and the Auror.

And just as the beast let out a soulful screech of agony, the spell slicing through the thick hide and sending pieces of what seemed like stone and gem shards in all directions, lava-like blood seeping from the beast's wounds—

The largest snake short of the basilisk from the Chamber of Secrets suddenly struck— a mouth full of dagger-like fangs going directly for his face.

_**Shhrrriikkk!**_

Moody's arm was in the great serpent's maw, forcing the serpent to writhe and twist as he wrestled the serpent down, bashing the snake's head repeatedly against the wall, the floor, and anything else he could smash it into. The hate and rage rising within Harry's body emerged as a foul cloud of blackness that spewed from his forehead even as a similar cloud emitted from the snake, all of it gravitating towards the brown beast.

The black one nuzzled her, whining, but then his jaws opened up to expose rows and rows of sharp crystalline teeth. He leapt upon the serpent with a bay even as innumerable other dark shapes flew out of the very walls.

Gargoyles—

Gargoyles of all shapes and sizes were there and wrathfully descended upon the serpent, ripping, tearing, and clawing it to pieces.

People were screaming.

Adults were yelling.

Teachers and staff scrambled to keep the students safely behind them.

The great beasts ripped and tore, snarling even as the largest of them—

The Headmaster's gargoyle himself landed upon the neck of the beast just below the head, great jaws clamping down like a spike-filled vice, and severed the snake's head from its madly thrashing body with a single decisive _**snap**_.

The snake's head bounced along the floor, separated both from its own neck and Moody's arm, landing at the feet of a terrified Hufflepuff. The young witch promptly fainted.

The snake's body continued to thrash as if still alive, beating itself against the walls and floor. An oily blackness poured out from the gaping neck even as a second stream of black came from Harry's head. It swirled around the amber-brown beast as glowing tendrils writhed from her back and seemed to wrestle with the foulness. The tendrils glowed brighter and brighter as a high-pitched masculine scream seemed to come from everywhere at once.

The black beast rubbed up against the other, leaning, and the magical tendrils emerged from its back as well, entwining with the others to strengthen the magic.

Suddenly, all the gargoyles tilted their heads back and bayed.

The cloud of foul darkness and Dark magic seemed to quiver and quake before it was overwhelmed by the brightest of purifying magic that both cleansed and devoured the stream of magic like one would slurp up a plate of spaghetti. The sienna gargoyle's body glowed even as the great gashes inflicted upon it meshed together, and ribbons of purified magic spread from her to each of the other beasts, sharing the spoils of a job well done… together.

Alastor lay gasping for breath on the floor, his arm mangled and greenish venom seeping across his flesh and wound.

The gargoyles gathered around him and hummed as one, the vibration of their croon shaking the portraits in their frames.

The sienna and black gargoyles whined and nuzzled him, laying their heads on his chest.

His hands weakly lay upon their heads as his eyes closed.

_**Shhffffffpph!**_

They all sank into the stone floor, and the body of Auror Alastor Moody disappeared along with them.

Then Harry Potter fell face-first onto the flagstone floor, the famous scar on his forehead fading away and vanishing as if by magic.

Alone and forgotten, Moody's beautiful silver flask lay in the midst of all the chaos, trampled and then kicked away into a shadowed corner by the frantic scurrying of so many panicked feet.

* * *

Harry awoke in the most familiar place in Hogwarts: the infirmary.

Sirius was sitting quietly at his bedside and looked up as he stirred. "Hello, Harry."

Harry rubbed his head habitually, but he realised the pain was different this time. For once, it was just a headache.

"What happened?" Harry asked wearily.

"You basically lost your mind, Harry," Sirius said. "I can only imagine that you must have found one of our old textbooks. Had Aurors here tracing the magic you'd cast. They couldn't very well blame _me _for it anymore seeing as I can no longer cast magic— but I knew the name of the spell well enough. It was a terrible, hateful spell from a terrible, hateful time."

Harry felt an odd heaviness around his wrists and frowned as he stared down at what appeared to be a set of shackles. "What?"

"Precautions," Sirius explained. "In case you actually have any magic left."

"What do you mean 'in case'?"

Sirius rubbed his chin with his fingers. "It was a very Dark spell that you cast, Harry. The second one after being warned not to perform any spells but those your teachers required of you. And now there is a good chance you won't have the ability to use magic anymore."

"But I was _**born **_with it!"

Sirius steepled his fingers. "We were _both _born with magic, Harry, but you gave the Wild Magick of the Black Family a way out— and with every Dark spell you cast, the magic within you aligned. It is why those who dabble in such things find they are no longer satisfied by typical spells. There are very few that can truly walk the path of neutrality. I could not escape the Dark and its inherent madness. Nor, it seems, could you, Harry."

Harry seemed confused when his usual anger and blinding rage didn't come directly to his beck and call. Instead, he felt impossibly weary, as though he hadn't slept in months. It was a strange, peaceful sort of revelation.

"It comes down to the fact that he attacked one of the gargoyles of Hogwarts with a Dark spell, Albus," Minerva's voice said, strangely quiet but firm. "And poor Alastor—"

Dumbledore's hand stroked his beard as he shook his head. "Whatever punishment he may receive from the Wizengamot, my old friend, will depend on if he has any magic left. Many will feel that the condition of having no magic is a greater punishment than anything we could come up with."

Dumbledore seemed to realise that Harry was awake again, and he seemed to glide toward them in a flow of lavender robes.

"Mr Potter. I see you are awake," he greeted.

"Yes, sir," Harry said, feeling rather uncomfortable under the headmaster's stern gaze.

"I fear you have committed a very grave error in going against my specific wishes, Mr Potter," Dumbledore said. "The only reason you are here and not on a Muggle train home right now is that somehow, you have managed to incapacitate the Dark Lord with your actions and because you had been under attack by Tom's snake— however there is some debate on whether the snake came first or after your attack on one of Hogwarts' residents."

Albus took in a deep breath. "Tell me, Mr Potter. What caused you to attack one of our gargoyles with Dark magic?"

Harry frowned, his brows knitting together. "I don't really know, sir. I felt so _angry_. There were two of the gargoyles with Auror Moody, and I immediately felt such rage. I wanted to hurt the black one. Punish it."

"Punish the gargoyle," Albus asked, "for what?"

Harry winced. "For _existing_."

Minerva's face paled as Albus seemed to digest the words carefully.

"These spells, Sirius," Albus said. "Who were they originally intended for?"

Sirius' eyes closed thoughtfully. "We made them for Snape. I provided the base spell, but Pr— James and Peter tweaked the gestures and delivery. Remus found out about it and he threw the book out the window. It was gone by the time we went to get it. We thought it was lost. We didn't bother to find it later because we realised since I had provided the base of the spell, you had to channel Black family magic into it, so it would be useless as a dueling spell."

Harry's face twisted in utter confusion. "But my dad— he was a hero!"

Sirius rubbed one temple with his fingers. "I think in the end, he finally realised that other lives mattered. Yours mattered. Whatever things we may have been guilty of before then, in that moment against the Dark Lord, he realised that _every _life mattered. Had James survived the war, Harry— he may have realised that far more intimately."

Harry touched the place his scar had been automatically, realising with a start that it wasn't there yet again. "The rage isn't so bad anymore. The anger. Why?"

Dumbledore sighed. "I believe that you were tied in certain ways to the Dark Lord, Harry. The scar was only a physical manifestation of that. He sent his serpent, Nagini, to find you here. It was able to pass through the wards because it was— like you in ways that I am only now beginning to fathom. The serpent— like you— held a piece of the Dark Lord, which was both a part of his strength and yet his doom. Ever since that terrible incident in the graveyard, Harry, the Dark Lord was a part of you physically by blood, so when you attacked Professor Snape in the library that day and triggered the Black family magic, you bound him via the very same entanglement."

"Then," Dumbledore continued, "when you triggered the magic again with a different spell, it drew Tom into the rebounding drain again. Only this time—"

"What happened to Voldemort?" Harry blurted out, causing the older wizards to wince automatically.

Albus stroked his beard in a self-soothing gesture. "He is at St Mungo's," he said after a while. "Shrivelled and entirely unresponsive. Had his body not been so distinctively different— well, there is no doubt on who he is."

"So, it's finally over?" Harry asked, his voice seeming so small.

"Not fully," Dumbledore said truthfully, "but, there are a few other tasks that may be accomplished with considerably less strain."

"Will I ever get my magic back?" Harry asked.

"That I do not know," Albus said with a heaviness to his words that seemed to hang about him like a shroud. "A week ago, I would have said yes, had you restricted yourself as I asked, but now— I fear that only the Master Healers and perhaps the Department of Mysteries can possibly provide an answer. Regardless of that, I fear, there is the matter of what will be done with you, my boy. Even if your magic is returned to you, you would still face the consequences of attacking a teacher, one of Hogwarts' protective beasts, and endangering the lives of your fellow students as well as Auror Moody, who was sadly lost after the battle with the serpent. On top of that, you've knowingly cast Dark magic twice now that we know of, possibly even more if you have been practicing."

"I am truly sorry, Harry. This is quite a grave situation, but the fact that I had been forced to allow you to stay here the first time and had you choose to do it again will inevitably see me facing my own trial before the Board of Governors as well as the Wizengamot— regardless of the reasons— thanks to the disappearances of a teacher, a student, and an Auror too."

Harry stared down at his lap, shaking his head. "What will become of my family legacy without magic?"

"Perhaps you should have thought of that before casting such terrible spells, Mr Potter," Dumbledore said quietly. "We repeatedly tried to warn you, but you simply refused to listen."

"I just wanted my family back," Harry whispered.

Dumbledore's haunted expression went entirely missed by Harry.

Sirius, whose eyes had been closed in contemplation, spoke up, "It's not magic that makes the family, Harry, but it _can _tear it apart. I think many people forget when they are born to magic and that it is a gift. A gift that can help them through life or destroy it."

Harry stared at his hands, his face twisted as he was confronted by, the gravity of his actions.

The weight of the price of giving in to his anger and rage and obsession for the perfect family finally popped the carefully crafted bubble of idealism he had fought so hard to protect.

He was no better than Voldemort who believed that magic made one superior in every way to a common Muggle.

* * *

_**Thuuup!**_

Severus slammed a paw down over the leather-brown gargoyle pup to cease his enthusiastic begging for more tasty gems.

The pup whined and moaned over his fate of being pinned down.

Gytha chuckled as she plucked the pup up in her mouth and moved him over to tuck him under her wing, giving him thorough grooming before passing him a tasty amethyst geode to snack on.

Hermione gave Severus an amused nuzzle, rubbing her head against his neck. He rumbled in approval, forgetting the pup's annoying enthusiasm.

While the newest gargoyle pup hadn't a clue of the growth and evolution of his family, Severus and Hermione had gone through yet another growth spurt, their bodies having both enlarged significantly and had undergone a bit of an overhaul. Their hides had become more like the older adults, like stone and gemstone to the eye, but they had gained the proportions to stand on their hind legs if they so choose as well as more dexterous finger-talons instead of full-on paws.

Severus found this excellent for his brewing experiments, and Hermione enjoyed not having to open and read books by turning pages with her face. More mischief also awaited those with hands, and they didn't waste any time exploring such avenues.

Midnight snoggers found themselves tangled in curtains, tripping over things that hadn't been there before they arrived, pranksters found themselves rerouted right into the waiting arms of Mr Filch, and every so often Mr Filch would find a small precious gem waiting for him in the midst of Mrs Norris' collection of cat toys.

Mr Filch seemed very grateful for the windfall, and his mood improved along with his living conditions, now that he was able to afford some comfort beyond what he could previously on his humble salary. Mrs Norris seemed happy with the outcome as her stipend of catnip mice had improved to include a few magically enchanted varieties that kept her entertained with their lifelike movements and taunts that no self-respecting feline could resist. She even managed to bag herself some fresh food on occasion— something that truly made her the feline queen of her domain.

Whether or not the students noticed such details, however, remained to be seen as they were often too busy trying to avoid the man and his faithful cat's attention.

Overall, the population of Hogwarts seemed to thrive again, not that they had been terribly oppressed during the war, but the heavy cloud of mysterious menace had finally ceased darkening their every horizon, whether real or imagined. Some of the children had lost family to the war on one side or the other, but there was certain solidarity in the loss that seemed to bring the populace together.

The name of Harry Potter was no longer whispered worshipfully as being the Chosen One, but instead, as a warning that magic was something precious wherever it was found— and was to be treasured and respected rather than abused and taken for granted.

Perhaps, it was the united glue the world needed to bring two sides that had once thought themselves so apart from each other. That alone, was worthy of some respect and admiration.

While Severus and Hermione and the rest of the gargoyles didn't see the significance at the time, Harry Potter had been judged by magic to be unworthy of its continued blessing. The Wizengamot found him guilty of multiple counts of Dark magic, attacking of his teacher, injuring and disappearance of his classmate and his Auror escort, but the healers also found that his magical foundation had been emptied to the point where anything past a simple Lumos or Tempus charm was well beyond his ability.

Harry Potter moved along with Sirius Black to Brighton Beach, where they opened an innocuous little sweets shop that served Muggles and the occasional magical while they were visiting the area. It was said many years later that when Dumbledore decided to hand the reins over to Minerva McGonagall, he might opt to join them in the joys of ice cream and candy-making as well as the lack of a glaring spotlight.

Tom Riddle, the infamous Lord Voldemort, was found comatose and cocooned in silk by Acromantulas in the Dark Forest, having apparently fallen under their attentions when the death of Nagini and the subsequent magical draining took back everything he had stolen from his minions. His subsequent inability to die had apparently given the spiders an infinite feast— a feast they fought hard to keep when the Aurors came looking for him.

The Aurors, disturbed by the startling mutations in the Acromantulas, brought in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and had them exterminated due to their increased craving for human flesh and brazen wandering into the town of Hogsmeade looking for "tasty, tender children."

Hagrid could barely speak a coherent sentence for a month afterwards, choosing to wail endlessly while blowing his nose into a hanky the size of a tablecloth as he sulked around the grounds like an enormous snivelling banshee.

The gargoyle pups continued their lessons with their elders, attentively learning all they could while always making time for a game of hide and seek in the castle. They could never quite shake the leather-brown pup, however, no matter _how _hard they tried to hide.

It was no real wonder, however, considering his name was Vigilance.

Vigilance pounced on Hermione's tail, eagerly gnawing on the gem-encrusted and well-armoured appendage with enthusiasm.

Severus growled, thumping the younger pup away from Hermione's tail, but he didn't want to give up his favourite pouncing and playing target.

Hermione seemed amused by the entire ordeal, her tail curling back and forth and side to side to gather the pup's interest, much to Severus' consternation.

Severus sighed, flopping on top of Hermione, and she meep-growled, struggling under him until he groomed her ears. She froze, her eyes closing in pleasure, and melted into a boneless heap of gargoyle goo.

Happy with his accomplishment, he nuzzled her, and she crooned happily, snuggling into him with a contented whuff of contentment.

"What are you thinking?" Severus murmured.

Vigilance was trying to wrestle with Hermione's tail, and she used it to pin the pup down and flop him on his back. He growl-whined in protest at the indignity of it all as his play toys were not supposed to fight back. It just wasn't _fair_.

"Do you think he'd be mad at me?" Hermione asked. "At all of us?"

"Saving his life would probably be a forgivable offence," Severus said.

Hermione tilted her head. "He accepted it, but—"

"The Wild Magick chose him," Severus said. "It was its choice."

Hermione seemed to ponder that a bit before her tail released the protesting pup.

Vigilance pounced Severus' scruff and growl-tugged on his mane of protective tendrils. One of the magical ones pulled back and bopped the pup, seemingly growing an eellike mouth and hissing.

The pup pulled back, baffled and unsure what to do about the change in situation.

"You're right," Hermione said after a while. "I just keep playing it over in my head and wondering if my ability to harness magic and transform it took away his choices."

"If anything, it gave him _more _choices," Severus said. He scowled at Vigilance as the pup tried to growl snap at his mane. His "mane" dodged, but it only encouraged the pup to try even harder.

Severus grunted, using his foreleg to keep the pup at a distance by pinning him by the head. Vigilance's paws scrambled against the ground attempting to propel himself forward only to get nowhere. He tired quickly after that and flopped on his stomach to do his best bearskin rug impression.

Hermione chuckled as Severus' relief radiated from him now that, finally, Vigilance had worn himself out. She nuzzled him approvingly, earning herself a thrumming croon.

"It seems calmer here, now," Hermione said, hopping up to stand on her back legs to look out the higher window to the green outside.

Severus joined her, his tail carefully wrapped around the pup to keep tabs on him even when he wasn't looking directly at him. "You're right."

"Do you think we had something to do with it?"

"Maybe," Severus said with a shrug of his mane. "But if we did, that is what we do. Ædeweard always says that it is our very nature to protect our home."

Hermione smiled, her fangs glinting. Thoughts of learning always appealed to her, and now that they were older, the lessons came in rushes of thoughts and memories from all of the adults. Most of it took some time to decipher and digest, but they were getting better at it every day.

"Do you think we were like him— before?" Hermione asked, speculating.

"I've wondered," Severus admitted. "I've always been apt at potions even without lessons from the elders."

Hermione grinned at the thought. "You're _brilliant_."

Severus' brows knit together.

She licked his nose. "You are."

Severus turned a few shades redder under his dark skin. "What does that make you?"

Hermione seemed to droop a little. "I don't think I had a specialty before. I don't think I was especially talented at all. Not like _you_."

Severus snorted, clamping his mouth over her muzzle. "Don't be silly," he admonished. "Your ability to channel and redirect magic is something no one else can do."

"But I don't think I did that before," Hermione said. "I wasn't special."

Severus wrinkled his nose, releasing her muzzle from his mouth. "Does it really matter that you didn't do it before when you can do it now to protect our home?"

Hermione's muzzle twitched. "I suppose not. I just— I guess I wanted to feel like I was special."

"You _are _special. So, if no one told you that before this life, then they are all a bunch of dunderheads."

Hermione grinned at him. "I _love _that fierce expression you get on your face."

Severus arched a brow at her.

"Hee." Hermione chuckled and rubbed her head against his chin.

"Hn," he said, muttering but privately very happy that Hermione liked things about him— or at least continued to like things about him. He was going to say something more to her, but Vigilance chose that very moment to catch his second wind, and he bounded down the hallway in the pursuit of—

Poor Mrs Norris.

Hermione and Severus sighed together and chased after to keep Vigilance from falling off the moving staircases or something equally troublesome.

* * *

"_**EEAAAGHHHHHKKKKKK!" **_

Sybill Trelawney screamed as the crystal ball she was trying to attune to the rare blue moon's lunar energy went flying out of her hands and down the hall as a startled gargoyle pup landed on her head and covered her eyes with his hindquarters.

The crystal ball landed in the hall and proceeded to bowl over a number of equally startled house-elves, sending them tumbling off in odd directions as the stumbling Trelawney landed hard on top of them, spreadeagle, having been knocked unconscious.

The dizzy gargoyle pup squeaked in mortification and made for the nearest wall, but he hadn't quite figured out how to phase through as effectively as the rest of his clan, and he barrelled headfirst into the wall with a loud _**THUUUUMMMMP!**_

The nearby curtains that framed some portraits came tumbling down.

The pup whinged and wriggled, trying to escape the thick curtain, but his duller baby claws were not quite up to the task.

Hermione tugged the curtain off the squirmy pup as Severus stood on his tail to keep him from getting into more trouble, but Vigilance was like a greased baby warthog, and he slid out from under and chased after that tasty, tasty globe of crystal.

"Vigilance, _**no!**_" Hermione cried.

Severus suddenly showed up next to Vigilance with a soft crack, his jaws moving to grab for the pup—

_**GULP!**_

The hungry pup's jaws dislocated like a snake's and he swallowed the runaway crystal ball whole.

"_**Strike!"**_ Dumbledore cried as he took in the scene, only to cackle madly and continue on his way as Fawkes cheekily warbled Queen's _Another One Bites the Dust_ from atop the headmaster's shoulder.

_**FOOOOP!**_

The two older gargoyle pups phased directly through the floor in absolute mortification, taking a full and now sleepy Vigilance along with them.

* * *

"Albus, did you _really _leave Sybill lying there face-first on the second-floor hallway?"

"Of course," Albus snorted. "There are only so many sherry-intoxication situations I can tolerate from her before I have to record the incident for the Board."

"You let her wake up on the floor with all the children going on their way to breakfast and having to walk right by her!" Minerva said, mortified that the children were forced to see one of their teachers in such a state.

"Minerva," Albus sighed, "I think it is past time I put my foot down regarding the situation, don't you? Now, there is no plausible deniability. No more excuses left to hide behind."

"But the children, Albus—" Minerva protested. "Surely there could be something that didn't involve the children seeing her that way!"

Dumbledore stroked his beard. "Alas, Minerva. Sybill has already been seen far, far worse by many an unfortunate child previously, but always before the threat of her being murdered or captured and tortured loomed overhead. Any attempt to discipline her before now would have led to her very likely death after all the information she could provide was wrung from her mind."

Minerva wearily sat in the nearby chair. "Merlin knows I have been trying to convince you to get rid of the charlatan for many long years, Albus, but I worry what stories the children will be telling their parents about the teaching staff here at Hogwarts!"

"As you well know, my old friend," Albus said wearily, "the secrets we would rather keep that way everyone has an eerie tendency of finding out about— and such stories will be told with or without our knowledge."

"But what purpose does doing it _now _serve, Albus? Why now of all times?"

Dumbledore played with an ornate gryphon quill that was sitting in a holder on his desk. A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "The gargoyles believed it was time."

McGonagall's eyebrows knit together into one unit. "The _gargoyles_?"

"They showed themselves, and I think it was the sign I was waiting for."

"But Albus, we've always had gargoyles."

"True, Hogwarts has always had gargoyles—" Albus looked out his window, his hands crossed behind him. "But, I think they were being held back somehow but have now been freed to more fully interact with the staff as well as the castle itself. That should make things rather interesting, Minerva. I find I am rather looking forward to the possibilities, aren't you?"

Minerva seemed to ponder it deeply. "Quite some time ago, there were a pair of gargoyles in my chambers. Two young ones."

Dumbledore tilted his head to peer curiously at her. "Oh? Why did you not say anything before?"

"At the time I thought I had merely dreamt it," Minerva confessed. "It was quite a surreal experience."

"Well, if gargoyles are truly returning to their castle home en masse, I think the castle will undoubtedly be much safer for everyone. I dare say, it hasn't felt quite so peaceful since well before Headmaster Dimpett's time," Albus said, nodding.

"I only remember the large one in front of the stairs and the few scattered on the floors, but—" Minerva made a face. "They never moved before."

Dumbledore smiled. "Oh, I have a feeling they were always perfectly able to move. We just can't see them, usually."

"Because they normally move slowly?"

"Because they simply don't wish to be seen."

Minerva seemed to sprout cat ears on her head as she let out a surprised, "Oh."

* * *

The denizens of Hogwarts were often treated to the sight of Mrs Norris running very very fast down the hallways as if she was being chased. Her fur would be standing on end, her eyes very wide, and her tail fluffed out like a bristle brush. Yet— nothing ever seemed to be behind her.

Many blamed Peeves, as it was only natural for him to tease any and everything.

Unfortunately, when Mrs Norris jumped right _through _Peeves to escape her invisible pursuer, the baffled children had to come up with a new hypothesis as to the "crazy old moggie's" odd behaviour.

* * *

The Hogwarts choir began to notice that when they really got into their songs, the room would thrum with a sort of crooning that no one could ever quite explain. It would start when they sang and stop as they stopped, never happening when they could stop and trace where it came from.

Flitwick seemed to enjoy the harmony, stating that it was like the Earth itself was singing along with them.

The children couldn't help but feel safer whenever it happened, and many began to feel like their choir wasn't complete with it.

As to what it was—

No one really knew.

* * *

Some lazy students who fell asleep in class awoke to find their shoelaces damp and knotted together like some cat had decided to make a yarn ball out of the cord.

Teachers tried to keep straight faces when the napping students would startle awake with the class bell, attempt to leave quickly, and promptly discover their shoes were lashed to the chair leg.

There was a great increase in class attentiveness through Hogwarts much to their teachers' joy and the students' resignation that they just might have to actually pay attention in class.

The _horror_.

* * *

The Whomping Willow greeted Professor Sprout with a number of equally whompy seedlings scattered about the green, much to the distress of a few unwary students that had been punched squarely in the nose, smacked on the ankle, or bashed in the kneecaps by the cranky seedlings.

"Goodness!" Pomona gasped as she measured the seedlings. All of them ranged from knee-high to past the shoulders of an average young wizard. "I think _some_one must have been dipping into my extra-special fertiliser!"

The adult willow did not seem overly impressed by Pomona's fussing with her babies and took a few quick swings at her. The experienced witch, however, dodged deftly.

"This is _**great **_news!" Pomona announced, joyfully running back to her greenhouse.

She didn't notice the older gargoyle pups watching as Vigilance tried his level best at mauling the whomping end of the willow's burl-like branches in his attempt to help release the trapped buds. Half of the buds had broken free thanks to his tenacity, but he hadn't quite figured out how to properly break them open in a linear fashion or at least a thorough one.

Worse, the fuzzy velvet buds tickled his sensitive little nose, and the poor pup started sneezing uncontrollably, blowing gem dust out of his nostrils with the power of his rapid-fire nasal barrage.

Hermione and Severus, half-covered in amethyst and ruby dust, eyed Vigilance with united annoyance.

As Dumbledore watched from his office, he saw a number of students tripping and staggering about as something invisible appeared to plough by them only to make one, two, three splashes into Black Lake shortly after.

Albus popped a lemon sherbet into his mouth and smiled widely.

* * *

When Vigilance found the trampled, forgotten flask in a hidden nook, he immediately took a shine to it and wouldn't let it out of his sight. He carried it with him everywhere, dutifully protecting it from everyone and everything that might steal it from his care. During bathtime, he'd hold it in his mouth, determined not to be separated from it.

Yet, when the elder gargoyles tried to figure out what made the newest pup so attached to a human object, the feisty little pup wasn't exactly inclined to tell.

He really wasn't much of a talker, but Ædeweard said every gargoyle had something unique about them. Vigilance, short of his lack of desire to communicate in words, was a perfectly healthy, well-adjusted pup.

Severus would comment that he was a dunderhead, always finding trouble nose first as if he were a trouble magnet. The adults seemed to think it was a great skill for when he was older and went looking for trouble to stop it from happening.

"Oh, sure, so in the meantime, he can just tumble off the staircases and land on random teachers," Severus muttered.

"Some would say it would be an improvement," Edolie said, her tail looping with her growing amusement.

All of them had already heard about Trelawney's public disgrace on that particular morning, and no gargoyle elder was going to admonish the pups over that incident due to how wonderful it was now that the daft witch was being detoxed and no longer throwing up in odd corners of the castle, groping statues, and bemoaning the loss of "her lurvely Severus."

Severus wrinkled his nose at the very thought of someone like her taking a shine to him. "Past life or no, I think I'd remember if I were attached to someone like _that_," Severus sniffed, shaking his head adamantly.

"More like she was very attached to you," Hermione said, slightly disturbed by the thought. Though she loathed admitting it, she felt the sting of jealousy that someone else might hold his affections, past life or no.

"There is no one for me but you, you know this, yes?" Severus' voice broke through her musings, and she immediately preferred to be murdered on the spot. She covered her head with her hand-paws, the gargoyle equivalent of "Nope, can't hear you, la la la la la!"

He wedged his nose under her arms and licked her cheek. "Why are you hiding?"

"I'm so embarrassed!"

"But _why_?"

He seemed to slump. "Don't you like me?"

"Of _**course **_I do!" Hermione blurted and then her eyes got really wide as she suddenly realised just what she had said.

His wing nestled around her, and she immediately snuggled into him, burying her nose into his warmth and scent. "I just— I just don't want to disappoint you," she whispered.

Severus gave her a tender nuzzle, grooming her ears. "You could _never _disappoint me."

"Never is a long time," Hermione said speculatively.

"I'm not saying we'll never disagree," Severus said. He lay his head over the back of her neck. "We can always talk things through and be better for it."

Hermione rolled on her back and play-batted at his muzzle, a grin spreading from one side of her muzzle to the other. "You always make me feel better. I'm so glad you're here with me."

He snuggled her, drawing her into his winged embrace. "Always."

Vigilance chose that moment to barrel into them, run up Severus' back and flop into the crevice between his wings and Hermione, filling in the space like a cork in a wine bottle.

Severus sighed heavily. "I'm going to murder him."

Hermione chuckled, nosing Vigilance under her wing as Severus fed him a citrine cluster.

The little pup shoved his flask under Hermione's wing to hide it from "harm" and then took the offered gemstone into his mouth and crunched it happily before falling into a snoring slumber shortly after.

Severus rolled his eyes, but as he lay his head down next to Hermione's, she snuggled into him and all those murderous thoughts fell to the wayside.

Life was good.

Even if the leathery miscreant refused to leave their side for long.

* * *

**End of Chapter 3**

* * *

**A/N:** Stay safe out there, everyone, as you shelter at home and try to restrict that social life to the 'net.


End file.
